Mac's Monthly Miscellany

Newt Gingrich's Surrogate at Coker College Today

2012-01-20T14:45:00.000-08:00

Newt's Surrogate at Coker Today

So, last week we were told that Newt Gingrich was going to speak at Coker today. Last night, we were told that (Ret.) Colonel Michael Steele would speak in his stead. Since I had already canceled my classes, and because I hadn't been to a political rally (Dan Quayle) since the 1980's, I went.

Some observations and quotes:

1. The staffers were all dressed alike. Khaki pants, blue blazers, white or blue oxfords, leather shoes, tastefully-sized Newt nametags. They were all Caucasian, looked about 24-28, and obese to a man. One of them got us started with a very somber call to say the Pledge of Allegiance, which he did sounding like he was at a funeral for the republic that it represents. It was seriously the worst pledge I've ever heard because his mic-ed voice could be heard over ours.

2. Colonel Steele is definitely ex-military. When his mic wasn't working like he wanted, he boomed a barking order into it to have Trevor Robinson, our theater manager fix it by yelling "TREVOR!" in an imperative tone. He then gave an "angry-white-grandpa speech" as one of my colleagues put it. He started out by saying that he was going set aside all of the "rhetoric" of Newt's opponents and speak in a frank apolitical way about issues that he felt were important. He then went on to say this, which I posted to my facebook so I wouldn't forget it, "We've got Ahmadinejad, this little leprechaun [], in Iran trying to block the Straits of Hormuz and restrict the flow of 1/6th of the world's oil supply.

3. He claimed that there are 25-30 nations that pose a trans-national direct threat to the USA and our interests.

4. He talked at length about the border with Mexico. He said, "I bet nobody in here has ever been to Juarez, Mexico" and said that it was "Murder City." He then explained that it is our problem when it's happening on our border because ranchers and students visiting Mexico were getting killed there. He then said that, "Mexico is a clear threat to our national security."

5. He made a list of six important threats to the USA, including Mexico, Iran, Afghanistan, the Taliban, North Korea, and "regulations and the EPA." He then said that these threats to the USA are "enemies" of the USA. Ergo, the EPA is an enemy of the USA.

6. He got really apocalyptic and said that "2012 is our last chance. This is it. We've got one shot, and then we're done." No one asked him to clarify in the Q&A, but he had way too much doomsday in his voice.

7. He mentioned Newt's work on welfare reform with Pres. Clinton, which I actually liked. However, he missed a huge opportunity to note that Pres. Obama issued an executive order overturning those very same reforms.

8. An audience member who serves in the SC House humblebragged his way into a description of his opportunity to address Israel's Knesset and asked him what Newt would do to protect these "God-given lands" for the Israelis, including Gaza and the West Bank, which the audience member said were the "heartland" of Israel. Col. Steele did not contradict anything the man said.

9. A 7th grader repeatedly pressed him about what Newt would do to stop killing "innocent civilians" in countries we invade, including supporting Israeli actions in Gaza. Col. Steele explained the Weinberger Doctrine to the kid, and was able to almost-gently explain to the kid that the subject was too vast to explain to him in a forum like that.

10. When asked what healthcare would look like under Newt, he said, "I guarantee you that it won't look like socialized medicine." He then proceeded to vilify the Canadian system, talking about someone who had died in a Winnipeg ER and was only found 36 hours later when it was her turn. His promise? "I guarantee no one will die waiting in our ERs under Newt." A tall order for a mortal.

11. When asked what Newt would do for a woman and her husband who are self employed and cannot find insurance that covers maternity in this state, he answered, "I can't answer that. Ask me something about threats to this nation." He did however offer her his card and told her to email him and he would get her the answer.

12. He said "shame on" anyone who doesn't vote in tomorrow's primary.

13. He later called out Pres. Obama for canceling a wargames exercise because Iran and that "little dwarf Ahmadinejad" were doing one at the same time.

14. He said that, and I quote, "Afghanistan is just a piece of dirt, not a nation." His justification? They don't all speak the same language and they don't pay taxes.

He never mentioned Black Hawk Down or his membership on the 1980 UGA Football team. I'm glad I went, but it would've been much cooler to hear Newt. I'm voting for Mitt tomorrow.

A punitive approach to the War on Drugs does not work.

2012-01-17T16:25:00.000-08:00

It is a fact, IMHO, that a punitive approach, while remaining constitutional, to the drug problem does not work. We either have to raise the punishment to levels so severe that no one dares break the drug laws, or we have to adopt an approach that isn't punitive. Countless research turns up the same results year over year: restricting access to drugs does not achieve the desired ends.

I worry far less about addiction than I do about the violence that the war on drugs causes. There will always be addicts. It's the generations of fathers and sons lost to the violence and prison, and the ghettoizing of once strong neighborhoods via gang control that are the bitter fruit of Nixon's war.

If we believe that sociologists should strive to only recommend objective policy to politicians, it would seem that the overwhelming consensus of the last 25 years is that a "punitive" approach to drug policy is a failure, and that other avenues should be attempted, especially with regard to marijuana. However, the consensus about the outcomes of that change is not in any way agreed upon, they just agree that a punitive approach carries far more repercussions in society that most believe carry a larger negative impact than increased availability of legalized production, sale, purchase, and consumption.

Here are some links (with quantitative data that talk more about what I'm contending).

http://www.drugpolicy.org/docUploads...ollegeCUNY.pdf

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3487894

http://books.google.com/books?id=5QE...page&q&f=false

The LDS Church needs to invest in our youth

2012-01-10T18:48:00.000-08:00

The PTO at my daughter's school is one of the organizations to which I don't mind giving. They provide a detailed accounting of all funds, and if asked, they will answer questions. They could choose not to, but I appreciate it when they take the time to let us know on what projects they choose to spend cash donations.

The Darlington County Habitat for Humanity will, on request, demonstrate how they allocate their receipts. I would still give if they didn't, but I appreciate that they're open about how funds are spent.

I pay a full tithe. I trust the leadership to make righteous decisions about the money over which they have stewardship. I would appreciate knowing the distribution of tithing funds and how they are allocated. I would also enjoy having more funds locally with which to hold activities and events that we can invite the public to like our nativity set showcase (we have about 150 nativities and creches set up). We have a gigantic lot behind the church, big enough for three softball fields. So far my requests to have a pavilion installed with a gas BBQ pit, ceiling fans, and picnic tables have been greeted with buck passing and friendly dissembling from the stake president.

If you go to locally successful churches, you will find "teen centers" and full service kitchens. People come to church activities and truly linger longer. The Episcopal Church here has an amazing professional kitchen, and the parties there are top notch. The teen center at Lakeview Baptist has tons of couches, a stage with a drumset, guitar amps, and a piano. It also has a big TV with an xbox, a dance floor with a disco ball, and an indoor basketball/volleyball gym. Teenagers love to hang out there, and activity night on Wednesday is packed (granted, they also have a full-time paid youth minister to oversee programs).

In these parts, the Methodists have excellent BSA troops with Centennial Quality awards that aren't ephemeral. They have equipment, troop trailers, and out buildings specifically for storage of scouting equipment. Non-Methodists send their kids to the Methodist scout troop because of how well-run and awesome it is.

The Catholic Church here has fish fries all the time. They do rummage sales, chicken bogs, Low Country boils, and other activities. They also maintain a regional food bank and will get infants a no-frills car seat on the recommendation of a physician or ecclesiastical leader.

Just about every denomination in town has a pre-k and kindergarten (at one of their locations) except for the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Methodists founded an honest-to-goodness no-questions-asked soup kitchen M-F that feeds between 60-110 people a day. My ward helps cook twice a month.

Almost all of the Baptist churches contribute to the funding of Upward soccer, basketball, and cheerleading. Great people like Mitch Outlaw volunteer hours upon hours of their lives to make kids have a great time and to enjoy being at church, learning about the Gospel in a fun environment.

The Salvation Army employs mentally retarded and emotionally disturbed people, maintains a food bank, and works with addicted people to get them clean.

I feel like the LDS Church is missing the point outside of Utah. We don't need more proselyting missionaries here; we need service missionaries and members too to have resources sufficient to make a difference in our communities. We've gone from a finding-truth charismatic church led by Joseph Smith to the Corporation of the President with the sure signs following of bureaucracy and an epistemological elite.

The routinization of charisma in our church is essentially complete.

Abiding with Johnny Mac's Memory

2011-10-31T08:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday made 4 years since my dad died. Right after he died, I just started singing "Abide with Me" in Spanish ("Acompáñame") right there in the hospital room because I find that the lyrics resonate with me more in Spanish, because I love the hymn, it fits in my narrow vocal range, and I felt like it would help me deal with my very really grief in the moment.

That hymn now serves as a permanent reminder of that moment and of the loss of my father.

Yesterday, the closing hymn in Sacrament meeting was "Abide with Me." I started crying in the back as I quietly sang it to myself in Spanish. I didn't sob or lose it, but the tears were there. I thought that that was going to be all that would happen yesterday. I felt fine. I came home, sat down at the computer and posted an abbreviated version of what I just shared on my facebook wall. I clicked send, and then started looking at my news feed to see what other people were doing.

My mom posted this photo of my father holding my Marley X at the Cafe du Monde in NOLA. The look on my dad's face and on my baby's face are ones of love and wonder:

And, I lost it. I mean, sobbing, chest-heaving, feeling-like-he-just-died-again-and-I-was-back-in-that-damned-hospital-room crying. My wife came down wondering what was going on and saw the photo and just started gently rubbing my back. Marley came down and just wordlessly hugged me. My little Calliope patted my knee and said "he's sad because he misses his daddy." And my boy, my Jack, the kid who looks at me the way I remember looking at my father, whose Primary education is apparently taking hold in his brain, bluntly but oh-so-lovingly told me in his always-too-loud voice that "DON'T WORRY, PAPI. YOU'LL SEE YOUR DAD AGAIN WHEN YOU'RE DEAD. IT'LL BE OKAY."

When most people talk about the Resurrection after someone dies, I find it annoying. When my son screams it at me, I found it touchingly reassuring. That's my hope and faith.

I miss my dad today; he would've been 61

2011-08-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

RIP Harmon Killebrew

2011-05-17T09:17:00.000-07:00

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6559023

This one is getting to me today. I met him in 1989, and he was among the nicest of all the ball players I've ever met. I wasn't around during his playing days, but I've studied his career endlessly, and he was among the best ever. He was a guaranteed homerun in the old Earl Weaver's Baseball game on the PC in the 80's.

Impact of a Mission

2011-02-02T22:12:00.000-08:00

I joined the LDS Church on 1-20-1991. My mother was not a member at the time. Around Christmas of my senior year of high school, my bishop, a wise and honorable man, called me in for an interview. My mother had been attending church each week with us, but as she was a die-hard Southern Baptist, she refused to even consider joining the Church. My bishop asked me what my plans for after high school were. Because of enormous pressure from my mother, I told him that I was going to go to Georgia Tech, get my degree, and then serve a mission. My mother had seen my LDS cousins go on missions first and then struggle to finish college in a timely manner, and she didn't want that for me (her worries about me were based on her own religious prejudice more than logic). My bishop then asked me if I wanted my mother to get baptized. When I responded "yes," he then said, "Mac, in the name of Jesus Christ, and by virtue of the priesthood and calling that I hold as your bishop, I promise you that if you go on a mission before going to college, your mother will get baptized some time during your mortal life." The Spirit hit me like a tons of bricks. I could only mouth "I'll go."

I came home and told my dad. We worked out my part of the bargain....since I hadn't had my entire youth to save the money, he agreed to pay for everything I couldn't earn. After graduation, I worked three jobs (Kroger, McDonald's, cutting lawns) 6 days a week and was able to earn a bunch. My mom was pissed that I was foregoing college for a 'mission' (said with as much scorn as you can imagine) and she never let my dad, the bishop, or me forget it. I was to report to the MTC on February 3, 1993. The night before I left, my mom asked me to give her a priesthood blessing. I did, and in it I felt prompted to tell her to listen to the Spirit when she missed me. Off I went.

The MTC was like prison. I felt like I was being talked down to all the time. I already had some working knowledge of Spanish, but I was mistakenly put in with the new folks. I was asked to stay with the district so I could 'help' them. Since I was a convert, I had a naive and exalted view of missionaries. One week in the MTC and I hated Utahns, Utah, the snow, the food, and everything about the place. I wanted to go home, but I also wanted to serve, and I wanted my mom to get baptized, so I stayed. 9 1/2 weeks later, I get to Costa Rica. I get put in the worst slum in the whole country because I'm a big dude and people are less likely to mess with me (that's what the mission president told me). The sun bakes the tops of my ears and the back of my neck into a pinetree bark mass of scalded skin. I have blisters the size of 50 cent pieces on the bottoms of my feet. I get sick and vomit and blow diarrhea all over the place, uncontrollably, about once a month.

But, people start to listen to what we have to say. People start getting baptized. In one area, I baptize a lady....last June I was with her and her daughter talking about how hard it was for them to get up for seminary every morning. Then one night, I come home and I have a message from the mission home to call them first thing in the morning (the phones used to shut off at 9:30 at night). The next morning, I call. The mission president wants to see me....it's serious....he won't say what. I'm to come in to the mission home immediately...taking a taxi from the parada. Oh crap! Did someone die?

I walk in the door, and I see an elder from my MTC district that I hadn't seen in months, I say 'hey." The president interrupts me, "Elder Williams, come here and read this, now."

He hands me a rolled-up piece of fax paper. I open it, heart pounding....I can taste metal in my mouth. It reads, "Dear Son, I have decided to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Love, Mom."

That's why I served a mission, and stuff like that is why I stay active in spite of all the problems, doubts, and other stuff in the Church that bother me. My bishop was an inspired man, and that promise he made has sustained my testimony in many a dark hour.

Also, without learning Spanish, I would've been a history professor.

Why I'm fine with a secular Christmas

2010-11-09T07:37:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite Christmas memories was the time my dad and I went and bought Christmas for a family in our ward during the early 90's recession, and we went on Christmas Eve, left it all on their doorstep, parked the car way up the street, and then used my dad's "carphone" to call them and tell them to go outside. That was a good feeling. If I get the Bah Humbugs, I just try and do something for someone else.

I think the celebration of the Savior's birth isn't that big a deal, because we celebrate his life every day, every Sunday, etc. I always view birthday celebrations as for the living, and while I believe that Christ lives again, I think that observance of his birthday doesn't really matter in these postmodern times. I wouldn't hold a birthday party for someone who couldn't be there. I know this sounds obtuse, but if I want to celebrate Christ, all I have to do is go to Church, or read the Scriptures, or pray. Christmas is more about family and friends and feasting during the lean Winter months of the Northern Hemisphere. I am indifferent to the "Jesus is the reason for the season" slogans because they ignore the 3500 years of history of Winter Solstice observance that was co-opted to bring the pagans into the Church. Again, I'm sure this will irk some people, but while we do read Luke, and tell the stories, I think that secular holiday traditions, in moderation, are fun and wholesome, and designed to make us happy, and are more important than religious foci.

Really, Christmas to a child, is magical, and when we get older, we can't feel that magic because we know who Santa Claus is, and we know what things cost, and try as we might, we can't feel that elation and joy of running downstairs on Christmas morn anymore. Also, people we shared those memories with have died, and their absence bites the heart when we're around those we love because the loss of association is so tied to those memories that it staggers the soul. Nostalgia is at the root of the bah humbugs, and there's no cure for it other than making the sacrifice for the young ones, and trying to be Christlike via service instead of worrying about honoring him through saying that Christmas is all about him, because it never has been.

Also, the 12 days of Christmas start 12-25 and go through 1-6. That's why January 6th is called "Twelfth Night."

Anyone else feel

2010-10-26T22:40:00.000-07:00

That the Mormon Church is starting to become like the Pharisees? Do this, don't do that, can't you read the signs?

I feel like there's too much worrying about rules, written and unwritten, and not enough thinking about how to follow Christ's example of love for everyone. It's a little depressing to hear people worry about what color shirt I wear to church, or if I wear shorts, or what hand I use to take the sacrament, or what are the exact rules for having the missionaries be able to come to my house for dinner.

What happened to the simplicity of the Church that Joseph Smith founded? Sometimes I feel like I wouldn't be shocked to see someone praise the Talmud Bavli (Babylonian Talmud)'s clarity from the stand on Sunday, and how we can learn a lot from the Law of Moses about how to know God's Will for us. Is it lawful to replace straw that fell from one's pillow on the Sabbath? Is it lawful to go trick or treating on Sunday?

I don't think God really cares too much about most things I do. As long as I'm trying to love my fellow man, I feel like I'm pretty good. I don't think he gives a damn whether or not I wear long pants to Church or if I say "thee" and "thou" in my prayers instead of "you."

The Youthful Culture of Hate & the Internet

2010-10-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

Thinking about the Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) culture of hate, I am appalled at the racism, gay-bashing, and just outright bullying that you hear on there. I've been called

"motherfucker" or "fag" or "nigger"

or "40 year old virgin living in your mom's basement" by so many 11 year olds now that I'm convinced that the unfettered anonymity of the internet is doing precious little to quash this culture among our youth. Rather, I see it as exacerbating the problem that was already there.

When I went to school in rural-trending-towards-suburban Georgia in the late 80's, if you called someone who wasn't your friend a "faggot" you knew that there was going to be a fight. The ability to just spew whatever hatred out there that you want, without fear of reprisal, brings what was our immature culture of hatred shared among friends, out in the open, as it were.

I've been playing a bunch with these guys from Jamaica. The other night, some kids were complaining about losing to "a bunch of foreign niggers."

One of the guys on my team then said, "How about I follow your ip address with my tcp/ip sniffer, come over to your house, rape your mom while I make you watch, and then kill you? I don't work; I got time to find you."

The other team then quickly exited the chat room, while everyone else laughed. I was appalled again. I said, "That was a bit offsides." He said back, "Now that little bastard will think twice about dropping racist shit on me."

All of this anonymity permmited by the internet, brings us into a new space. It's comparable to what Zygmunt Bauman calls the postmodern space of the city:

Quote:

City life is a life morally impoverished and thus free to be subjected to unchallenged rule of other than moral criteria. It is a joyously embraced choice - urban relations are anonymous and non-committal.

Also, when we look at a popular culture that embraces a minority non-sub-altern style as the apogee of cool, and that style chooses to denigrate, not the majority, but sub-altern segments of society, I see little wonder in reflecting on these issues as a reflection of cultural attitudes which manifest themselves in the hate-filled speech of MW2.

Mario Vargas Llosa

2010-10-07T09:43:00.000-07:00

I'm still shocked that Vargas Llosa won. He's very polarizing; love him or hate him. I have always enjoyed teaching his essay "My Son, the Rastafarian" ("Mi hijo, el etíope") in my classes. I was hoping for Nicanor Parra or Carlos Fuentes. At any rate, it'd been since 1994 that an American won. It's about time that the New World got some attention again.

I think that Parra, Fuentes, Piglia, Rushdie, Zizek, and McCarthy all deserve to win. But, that's probably never going to happen.

Letter to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse

2010-05-23T21:24:00.000-07:00

Dear Messrs Lindelof and Cuse,

Kiss my ass, you hacks.

Sincerely,

wuapinmon

Baseball and my Dad

2010-05-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

I miss going to baseball games with my dad. The air conditioning is really cold in the room I'm in right now, and I swear I can almost feel my dad here, asking me if I want to get cleaned up and drive down to Turner Field to watch the Braves play this afternoon.

Tim

2010-04-20T11:43:00.000-07:00

For the record, I put everyone up to it.

RIP Tommy Henrich (1913-2009)

2010-03-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

I just happened upon this NY Times obituary that tells me that Tommy Henrich has passed away.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/obituaries/02henrich.html

This saddens me. I can still see his Bowman baseball cards and hear my dad's voice telling me about Old Reliable. I can even imagine Mel Allen's voice (How about that?) calling him "Old reliable Henrich" for his clutch hitting.

Henrich didn't have the most-amazing stats, but he was Mr. Clutch; a team player all the way. He didn't go for glory; he went for the win, and that led him to seven World Series championships. Not bad for a guy who was never really a "star."

My condolences to the Henrich family. I never saw him play, but the legend is still there.

Henrich’s dedication on the field was matched by a reputation for strength of character. As Stengel put it in a 1949 profile of Henrich in The New Yorker: “He’s a fine judge of a fly ball. He fields grounders like an infielder. He never makes a wrong throw, and if he comes back to the hotel at 3 in the morning when we’re on the road and says he’s been sitting up with a sick friend, he’s been sitting up with a sick friend.”

Crystal Bowersox

2010-03-12T06:24:00.000-08:00

I think she's pregnant.

Surgery Tomorrow

2010-02-28T10:43:00.000-08:00

So, tomorrow I'm having my gallbladder removed, ending a 16-month span of pain and misery that has become my life. The pain is incessant now, and I know that I cannot continue you on much longer living with this pain without resorting to taking narcotics, in heavy doses, every day. It has to come out.

My gallbladder quit working normally when I began the South Beach Diet and lost about 25 pounds in a month. Since the pain started, I've been unable to diet normally, since many healthy foods' roughage have the effect of making it hurt. I've also been very unwise, turning to food as a means of dealing with the stress of pain.

My weight also puts me at a statistically significant;y higher morbidity risk for surgery with general anesthesia. So, I'm sitting here looking out my window in my home office at an azure sky thinking that I could die tomorrow.

While that event is unlikely, there are a host of potential complications that come from peritoneal surgery. The surgery is supposed to happen laparoscopically, which is complicated by the sub-cutaneous fat layer I've added, one mouthful at a time, to my rotund frame. The risk of pulmonary embolism is there. The surgeon will have to make larger incisions on me, putting me at a higher risk of developing hernias in the abdominal wall.

So, even though I've received a Church blessing, and will get another one tonight, confirming that after my doctors have helped me that the Lord will heal me, I still have to plan for the worst. So, just in case, por si acaso, I'm posting this for everyone.

I want to be cremated, with my ashes scattered in places that mean something to anyone who wants to scatter some. I'd like for everyone to have a big bonfire the night of the funeral and sit around and tell stories and whoppers about me. If I had the money, I'd start a study abroad scholarship at Coker College for study Spanish majors/minors to study in Spanish-speaking countries.

Mickelle, you are the love of my life and my best friend. I have no secrets from you; you know everything. I am worthy of a temple recommend, and even though my testimony isn't rocksteady, I do have faith in what I believe. I have doubted, every day, since I joined the Church, but I do have faith. It's been a constant struggle between belief and doubt, but at the end of the day, I do believe. I want you to remarry and be happy. Move back to Utah and be close to your family. Make sure the kids go to college and grad school. Be sure to scatter my ashes somewhere that means something to you. I want you to inherit all my belongings, but be sure that Marley gets the 1953 color Bowman Pee Wee Reese card.

To all my children, the suggestions about life that I make to each of you should be applied to all of you.

Marley, you are my first-born and the child that I will always know best because we've had longer to get to know each other. You are a very caring person and very tender with little kids. I hope that you'll go to college to become a professional of some kind. I could see you be an event coordinator or a small business owner. Your creativity and love of friends is an asset. Your hair is your crown of glory, always take care of it and use it to make yourself attractive and lovely. I love you very much, and I hope you'll get married some day to a man loves you and sees you as his equal. Never be afraid to speak up for people who are being bullied, and always rely on your intellect and wits and intuition. You are able to read people and if someone gives you a bad feeling, trust that. I've seen you identify bad people (ask mommy about the bad man who caused problems at Gove Allen's house) merely by your sense of judgment about people. Trust it. You might make an excellent police detective. I'd love for you to go to medical or dental school, but I understand if you choose a different route. Do what makes you happy as long as you don't get rich by hurting other people. Chose that profession that makes you happy, and always remember that you don't need a man to be successful. Don't not get an education if you get married young. Finish school before you have kids. If mommy hadn't finished school, finding a job after I died would be very difficult. Because of her education, she can find a good-paying job to take care of you kids. Do not rely on men for your well-being and sense of self either. If you think you look beautiful, you are. Health is beauty, no superficial looks. Youth will leave you one day, but health and self-esteem are there forever if you cultivate them. Also, don't be afraid to take risks on love. Even though a broken heart hurts worse than any other emotion (save losing a loved one), it's better to love and lose love than to have never tried it. I love you, Marley X.

Jack, my little man. You are the heir to a great name and tradition of honest men. See that you always tell the truth and never cheat, lie, or steal. I made some minor, but serious, mistakes when I was a young man that I shouldn't have if I'd listened to my father's wisdom about honesty. Always do what is right, even if it costs you. Your integrity has no price. Also, be nice to women. They are your equal; no should never try and lord over someone in a relationship just because you're physically stronger. When it comes to love, never use someone else for your own pleasure. Intimacy has a place in life, and I caution you to reserve intimacy for the one you love. I only ever kissed your mom--no other woman, and while I don't think that's the only way to go about dating, I always knew that your mom's kisses were the sweetest ones I ever had. Go to school. Don't be afraid of schoolwork. We Williamses are a smart bunch, but we're not the smartest people around--there's always someone smarter than you; I realized this when I met my friend Mike Wilson Reginato--he's the smartest man I've ever met. You don't have to be the smartest person in the room. Beware of pride about your intelligence. People who are not intelligent are not to blame for their stupidity, so you should never mock someone for being stupid. Rather, reserve harsh criticism for people who remain ignorant willfully or do stupid things when they know better. Seek to educate everyone around you. I'm a natural teacher, and I think you might be one too. If so, don't seek the riches of the world for riches' sake. Being a teacher, if you have the gift, is a noble thing to do. But, always remember that your primary purpose in your career is to make yourself happy. Don't take jobs that make you miserable unless they are a stepping stone in your education. Our family has issues with self-control. Please try and avoid alcohol and harmful drugs. If you start in with them, you'll find that your nature will make it difficult to give them up. Watch out for bad food too. I've eaten myself into a prison of a body because I lack will power, and my metabolism couldn't burn off my excessive excesses. If someone helps you, always thank them, and be sure to help others when you're older and have the resources to help out. Always remember that I love you, and that when you marry and have children some day, the love you feel for them will be the kind of love I have for you. You're my only son, and I love you dearly.

Calliope, my baby with the awesome name. Your middle name is Hispanic and represents a proud heritage of a people that I love like my own (Marisol is an abbreviation of María de la Soledad--ever Marisol I've ever met has been a total babe). Please, all of my children, cultivate your connection with Hispanic culture. There is much there that is wonderful and good. I have tried to raise you as Southerners and as Hispanics. Please keep this tradition alive in your hearts. Our Hispanic friends are genuine and sincere and as selfless as anyone you'll ever meet. Embrace this. Never be ashamed of the South. While there is much here that needs fixing, the South is your home and we have always tried to focus on the positives of family and friends being foremost in our sense of culture and society. Never ever assume things about someone because of their race or upbringing though. Give everyone a chance and be an optimist about people unless your gut tells you otherwise. You may have racist thoughts from time to time....listen to your mind in these moments and recognize that an individual's actions are what bother you, not something intrinsic about a person because of their skin pigmentation. Do not laugh along with other people if they make crude jokes. As far as religion goes, do not make the mistake of believing that only people who are Mormon are moral and righteous. Do not judge the world in black and white. The world is a big beautiful place with billions of different ways of seeing things; see it in color. Do not dismiss the wisdom found in the teachings of other religions. The majority of Muslims are decent, hard-working, moral people. If I die, you most likely won't remember me. Know that I love you very much, my little baby girl, and that you always made me smile and laugh, and that I had a blast playing with you. You have this way of lowering your eyebrows, I call it "fruncing" them, that makes my heart melt. I love you very much, and I hope that you grow up into a happy person who calls her mom her best friend the way your older sister does.

Mom, I love you, you know it. I'm really glad that you're my mom, and I can't bring myself to write something long to you right now. You know I love you, and if there is an afterlife (I believe there is), then I'll see you sooner than the rest :P.

Susanna, my kid sister. I thought about writing my testimony of the Gospel out to you, and then I thought about making a "pearls before the swine" joke, but really, I just want to say that I love you, and that I want you to be happy. It seems like that Eric guy is a good dude, and if he makes you happy, make him happy. Go get your PhD. Do it. It's worth it. I love you, and I hope we'll meet again.

Papa, I love you, and I'll see you in about 30 years? If you go back to practicing law when you get your second wind, try family law this time. I bet your wisdom could come in handy. I'm proud to carry your name.

Louis, my brother, thank you for being there when my dad died. You really could've been my uncle if things had gone differently, though I'm sure that you're happy with your life right now. You've got an awesome wife, and really cool kids who should be your pride and joy (they are, I know). While we don't see alike on almost anything politcally, I know you and know that you are a good man, and it's okay to differ on opinion. I hope that you'll encourage your kids to get a rigorous liberal arts degree in college, so that their beliefs are challenged. That way, when they come back to them, they'll know better why they believe what they believe and how to understand what the other side feels/sees. I hope you'll watch out for my mom and sister and my wife and kids. Be there for them.

Tim, my best friend (besides my wife), I leave you my 1988 Atlanta Braves team ball (give it back to my son in your will). It's because of you that I met my wife and have all my kids. Thanks for telling me to talk to her that one day in August 1997. I'm glad we were roommates, and I totally forgive you for wanting to hit me with that frying pan you picked up to "move." I love you man, I hope she makes your life complete. I know that my absence won't bother you, but try and keep it together when you think about me. Also, be there for my kids as a counselor/mentor/advisor. If they do something stupid, please chew them out/bail them out. If they do something grand, please tell them what you think I would've said. You can have the rights to all our creative ideas as long as you give Mickelle my share of whatever we make on them (I trust you), and our ideas probably have zero monetary value, but, you never know. Be happy.

Paul, my best friend, we've been friends for so long. Be happy in life. I still maintain that you would've been one hell of a good father. Aside from being an amazingly good writer, I also believe that you are a natural teacher, and that you should get into a classroom, even as a volunteer, to teach youth. Maybe baseball coaching. I get the distinct feeling that you could be key person in the lives of many people, the kind of person that gets things named after him. I'm not preaching at you, I just think that we've still got lots more to see from W. Paul Dunn.

Norman, please give my eulogy. Make it funny. Roast me. I don't want crying people at my funeral. Make it a brilliant piece of postmodern historiographic pastiche about my life, our youth, Cherokee County, I see your five, and the joy and brevity of mankind's time on Earth. No pressure.

Juan Carlos, my old 'roommate.' You're a good friend, y espero que Uds estén felices siempre. No nos hemos visto en años, pero te considero uno de mis mejores amigos en el mundo.

Cathy Cuppett, you're a good colleague and I thank you for picking me for Coker. I've enjoyed my time here and I hope your next colleague last longer than I did.

To everyone else, I'm tired now and in pain. If I didn't mention you, it's not a slight. I just can't bring myself to write anymore right now. Besides, I'll most likely pull through tomorrow without any problems, so this will seem morbid. But, with my dad dying so suddenly of CJD, I felt like I had to do this, because I would've loved to have something like this from him before the disease addled his brain.

I love you all.

Extended Hibernation

2009-10-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't felt the desire to blog this year, and I'm just letting any lurkers know that this blog will not be updated regularly.

21 Years Ago Today

2009-07-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

Twenty-one years ago today I woke up to the sounds of A Christmas Story playing on the TV on HBO. My dad turned it on, very loudly, to wake us all up. I remember feeling confused upon hearing the sounds of Christmas carols. The weather was cold and rainy that day, with tons of wind.....completely abnormal for Acworth, Georgia. My cousin Jared and I went down to the day-use area at Galts Ferry, and there was NO ONE there......the wind was making waves and they had just dumped about 50 dumptruck loads of sand on the beach area. We spent hours, in the cold rain, making sand castles and moats and walls to fight off the waves. That was a good day, unlike any fourth of July before it....or since. Cold weather in July...I believe the high that day was 70F.

http://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather/time_machine/1988/07/04/30102

RIP Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

2009-06-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

In the Summer of 1983, my grandparents bought the biggest Winnebago there was and took seven of the grandchildren on a tour of the USA. We drove from Atlanta to Ventura to Jackson Hole to St. Louis to Atlanta, stopping along the way over the course of six weeks, and spending tons of time in Jackson, where my grandma was born, visiting family. "The Trip" is legend in my family. We cousins grew far closer because of that vacation together than we ever would have otherwise. If I remember correctly, the RV had a cassette player, a big deal in 1983. One of my cousins had just bought the Thriller tape before we left. We listened to that album repeatedly for six weeks. "Don't you kids want to listen to the radio?" "No, turn it over to side B, pleeeeeeeeeeease."

"Beat It" was our favorite song. Some of the hotels we stayed in (at times, sleeping nine people in an RV got to be too much) had MTV......we'd watch until the video for "Beat It" would come on and then roar with excitement.

In 1993, when I still saw the world in Black or White, I thought Michael Jackson was a child molester. In 2005, at the last trial, and after I watched the Martin Bashir interview, I felt that he was still a little boy...that he had been damaged when he was young, and that the evidence against him was all circumstantial. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. He was never convicted. While I wouldn't have let my kids go to Neverland, I still enjoyed his music, and he was a touchstone of my life. If I ever hear a song from Thriller, I can still see the black ink on cream plastic lettering on the cassette tape. My wife had the inside poster from Thriller on her wall, and she was in love with him. Her Barbie married her Michael Jackson doll, not Ken. I so desperately wanted a red jacket, though you couldn't have gotten me to wear just one sequined glove. Had my parents let me, I have short, curly, woolly, kinky hair, and I would've done geri-curl. I believe my father's exact words were, to a nine-year-old boy, "Hell no, son."

Michael Jackson was the biggest icon of the 1980s. Bigger than Madonna. Bigger than Bill Cosby. Bigger than all of them combined. He was, the King.

He's an inextricable part of most people of my generation's lives. He's one of the best singers we've ever had, especially in pop, and well, because his music is such a big part of my life, to paraphrase him, he's just another part of me.

Insomnia Nugget

2009-06-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

How do you know that the drugs are messing with you? When you try to go to sleep at 1AM, but as soon as you lie down, you become obsessed with the idea of baking a cake. So you think to yourself, "Self, you're going the distance, you're going for sleep, but you're all alone, all alone, all alone in a time of need." So you plot your course to sleep, but you can't find it. You daydream of driving, in the car, but that makes your baby seem so far; you try and count sheep but they just go to hell...all the while there's this Frank Sinatra song playing on the radio in your head. And Sleep, that old friend, you're never there...in fact, friend, that's a four-letter word. And, the longer you lie there, the more the cake seems to be calling you. You're not even really a cake fan, nor have you ever baked one without a female overseer, but at 2:00AM you realize that the cake is calling and it's not going to go away until you yield to it, but that you really also love it madly.........so, I just made a cake, and I'm wide awake in America at 2:46AM EDT; I will survive, yeah, yeah.

Sometimes there just aren't enough rocks

2009-06-22T00:23:00.001-07:00

Missing

2009-06-20T19:32:00.001-07:00

I love my wife enough to fake being cool with her going to Utah for Jack's birthday, our anniversary, Father's Day, and Calliope's probable first steps.

I hate being alone.

RIP Truman Madsen (1926-2009)

2009-05-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

http://bycommonconsent.com/2009/05/28/truman-madsen-1926-2009/

Right before I got married, Truman Madsen was my stake president; he gave me my marriage recommend interview. He had me come to his house, a beautiful pad up on the hill west of the stadium, for the interview since he "didn't like conducting interviews in someone else's office."

My recommend interview consisted of two 'questions:'

1. I assume you were truthful in the interview you had with your bishop for this recommend, correct?

2. Bear me your testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

We talked at length after that about what I should expect of married life and why it was important not to quibble over money. Only the eternal stuff mattered.

He was a decent and kind man and I'm saddened by his death.

The Limón Mandarina / Rangpur Lime

2009-05-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

So, my favorite lemon/lime in the world, the limón mandarina, is impossible to find in the States. I can´t recall ever seeing it. I believe it may be called a Mandarin lime or a Rangpur lime, but the photos I´ve seen of those don´t correspond to what I know.

It has the freshest lime taste you can imagine and is a perfect palatte cleanser.

An old story that I felt like sharing

2009-04-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Until 1982, we lived in the mountains of North Georgia....Dillard, Rabun County to be precise.

View Larger Map

My dad was a professional beekeeper and we made sourwood honey up in the hollers of the mountains. Sourwood is some of the best honey around, and the trees grow in abundance up there.

This one ole boy, Cecil Carpenter, lived way up in the mountains and my dad paid him a trifle to keep bees on his land. My dad also managed the Dillard House restaurant to make ends meet in the offseaon. One day, Cecil comes into the Dillard House and he's got one of his arms all bandaged up like he's carrying a war wound. My Dad asked him, "Cecil, what happened?" Cecil went on to explain that his brother's hunting dogs had gotten loose in the night and had broken into his chicken coop and had killed a few of his laying hens. Cecil took out his shotgun when the dogs wouldn't "Get!," as he put it, and killed one of them. So, my Dad then asked him if one of the dogs had attacked him, if that was how he had been injured. "No," explained Cecil. His brother had heard the shooting and came over from next door to see "what in tarnation was goin' on." When he saw that Cecil had killed one of his hunting dogs, he shot Cecil in the shoulder.

My Mom and Dad, astounded, then asked him, "Did you call the sheriff to report him?" He answered, "No, since I kilt wone his dogs, and he just a-peppered me, I figure we's about ave-in."

Ara 13 Drawers & Booths My Review

2009-03-08T16:53:00.000-07:00

So, about five months or so ago I get a message on my blog asking me if I would like to read a novel by a blogger user named “Ara 13.” I message back that I’ll be happy to read it, thinking that it wouldn’t be anything important. Ara, be sure to read this entire post. I think you’ll like it.

Awhile later I received an attractively-printed paperback novel in the mail called Drawers & Booths. The cover contains a humorous description of the author as coming “from a long line of primates” whose “ancestors are directly responsible for the fashioning of the wheel and the discovery of fire.” It further claims that “one of his ancestors was even the first recorded Homo sapien. Therefore the pressure for Ara to succeed is enormous.” Clever humor amuses me, so I began reading the novel with high hopes.

My hopes soon crashed against the walls of a combat novel of military jargon in the 21st Century. The first thirty pages read like a W.E.B. Griffin novel crossed with Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons. There’s some characterization, the over-attention to detail that seems ubiquitous in the steady stream of guys writing stories about Iraq (or the fictional Cortinia in this version), the annoyingly jocular conversations between different branches of the service; basically, all the stuff you’d expect. At one point I was so befuddled by the jargon that I didn’t know that the “enemy” was the enemy because “Op4” sounds like some kind of super secret special forces stuff to the ignorant reader.

Then on page 34, something different happens. Right at the moment when our first religious character should appear, he’s even called by name, the narrator breaks into first-person and present-tense narration. In Genettean terms we go from an extra hetero diegetic narrator to an intra homo diegetic one. This will happen several times.

So we then go from the wilds of Cortinia to a pseudo-detective chasing a criminal mastermind behind all of the murders that happen. The police may catch someone red-handed, but this detective thinks that there a head honcho calls the shots. Long about page 50, the rhetoric of the novel has convinced me that there is an ulterior motive to what I’m reading. I get the sneaking suspicion that the Ara 13 who commented on my blog has read my dissertation research and my proclamations of faith and that he is an atheist seeking converts. This feeling is then substantiated when I go back and read the kitschy last paragraph of his Acknowledgement section that I had skipped over when I started. He writes, “And finally, thanks to the all the writers. It is my endeavor to be your peer. I especially thank Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Michael Shermer for the education. How did I do?” For those unfamiliar with these men’s writings, Dawkins claims that belief in god is a delusion. The four of them comprise some of the more vocal and antagonistic atheists on the planet, those who, like their believing counterparts, can’t just leave the other side alone.

For the next fifty or so pages, I admit, I’m reading the novel to get more ammunition to use when I skewer this book in my review. But, then, this guy who I sort of know, and who I talked to about why I was hating this book, pointed out that all my attacks were either ad hominem (e.g. the author is self-absorbed, the author used a vanity press), ones of personal taste (the author's writing is mediocre), or irrelevant to the critique of the thing as a work of art. So, as I fumed over what the novel was saying, how it was saying, and what it was “trying” to say to me, I read more. And then the narrator arrests God and puts him on trial for reckless endangerment. I almost threw it in the trash can…not because I believe in God, but because the idea seems trite and dumb and I get tired of dumb ideas.

At this point, I’m ready to give up, but the desire to shred this piece of crap is too much. And then, shockingly, that’s when the novel got good, as in really good. Ara 13 has a solid command of his words, the English language, the law, and the weapons of his critics. It seemed like every critique I had, the narrator would answer with an aside like when Ara 13, the author, is called to testify in the trial. He makes all the characters say only the word “silly” no matter what they try to do, and even though this meta-fictional self awareness of characters has happened countless times (think Kurt Russel’s Doctor character freaking out that he’s not real in Vanilla Sky). So just about the point where I’m ready to scream that this is derivative drivel, the attorney asks “Ara” the author, on the witness stand, “why are you doing all this?” To which he responds, “Short-term, it makes me laugh. In the long-run, hopefully it will be deemed literarily inventive and launch my writing career.” That’s just one of about twenty instances where he tactically takes the wind out of my sails just as I was about to nail him for being coy, or trite, or sophomoric. He recognizes it himself, and it makes the novel, well, dare I say? Endearing? I don’t have time to list more of them, but you can find no fault with a novel wherein the novelist himself points out why something “sucks.”

He then goes on to give an honest and clear-cut reason for why Ara 13 is an atheist. While not denying that there could be a God, he denies that there is one because he has seen no tangible evidence to the point. I respect that. After reading the novel, I feel that even though I’m wedded to hermeneutical interpretation of literature, I at least think that the Author behind the author respects my choice to believe.

Ara 13 completely understands my theory of the Gnostic Reader, and I commend him for a solid novel that I was wrong to judge so quickly. If you read it, be sure to finish it, because the first part will bore you, the second part will piss you off, the third part will win you over, and the fourth part will probably make you glad you read it.*

I don’t have the time right now, professionally or personally to take the time to write a philosophical critique of the novel. It’s worth a read if you’re into metaphysics and reader response theory (e.g. Jauss or Iser).

Ara, thanks for sending me the novel. I wish you all the best.

*There's no accounting for personal tastes.

When someone dies

2009-02-27T12:52:00.001-08:00

Now, maybe this is some deep connection to my ancestors, but when someone dies, I want a bonfire. I want a big-ass pyre that screams my sorrow into the night sky. I want the warmth of the flames to remind me of the embrace of my loved one, and I want the smoke to remind me of ascension of my prayers to my unseen God "up" in heaven. I also wish we could have a one night pass on the Word of Wisdom and all get piss drunk on rum as we sing dirges into the night and tell stories of our fallen friend. A bonfire is cathartic.

My Fall 2008 Evaluation Comments (All of them)

2009-02-16T11:26:00.000-08:00

Don Mac is a wonderful professor!! This is a great class but it needs more hands on activities!

He is the best teacher I've had here. Especially when we learn facts about other cultures. We learn about the world and don't even realize it.

This was my favorite class. The “que pasa en el mundo” made things interesting though we rarely understood at first. Great class!

He's a very great teacher and I learned so much from him.

Really good, helpful teacher, always there when I needed help. A ++ professor. I really liked using Quia it helped a lot. I didn't like audacity at all.

The instructor was amazing. This is the first time an instructor deserved all A's!!! I learned a lot in this class and almost considered a Spanish minor.

Wonderful professor – willing to help students as long as they want to help themselves. Makes 1012 work but you learn much. Gracias!

The instructor is one of the best I have had. He is very helpful. Spanish 1012 is a great program.

Great professor!

Always make class enjoyable. Always helps us when we have problems or ask for help. Very good course! I learned a lot and feel a lot more confident about conducting.

Awesome, fantastic, great teacher! Awesome course! Learned a lot!

Dr. Carswell did a wonderful job in this course! He was great! (Huh? This is a mistake)

Culture projects helped learn things about Spanish culture. The elmundo activities were good too.

I really liked the instructor. He was a very good teacher and had high expectations for his students. I would take his class again.

Wonderful teacher, really enjoyed the class.

He's an excellent instructor and provides many strong resources to do well on the exams. He shows interest in what he does and makes the class fun.

Enthusiastic about course material. Knowledgeable and helpful. Appropriate & interesting.

All of the group work helped me understand the topic.

Dr. Williams is a wonderful professor and is very passionate about what he does. He has made me love Spanish.

Needs to inform classes when assignments are due. Does a good job interacting with students.

Needs to make effient (sic) records (attendance, class participation, etc.) (A fair critique; it's true I could be better about taking attendance, but participation is student self-evaluation)

It's helpful that he is so readily available. “Que pasa en el mundo'” is a good way to learn because the student is individually corrected.

By having all of the students work in groups, we are able to learn more about the topics and participate effectively in class. Class discussions were also helpful and expanded our skills in the use of the Spanish language.

He is very concerned for the well-being of his students. He should write things he says down on something. (I should!) Good course. It challenged enough without breaking us. My writing skills have greatly improved because of Dr. Williams.

Professor was of much help. Available whenever we had a question. I enjoyed the class. All of the writing tips were very helpful. Some of the assignments made you think. (I'm sad they all didn't)

The amount of translation required will be great for native speakers but will most likely be too much for non-native speakers. (The class is SPA 225, so, translation shouldn't be an issue)

The instructor brought objects to class as visual guides for our writing. Excellent professor who always gives feedback and thorough in lecture. Course was very helpful because it helped [sic] to better articulate and become a stronger analytical thinker. Course was excellent. Helped my critical thinking and I feel that I have become a better creative writer.

Great instructor, really know [sic] how to treat people. One of the best instructors on campus. The course was interesting. I learned a lot on how to better writing [sic].

He is very interested on [sic] what he teach [sic] and knows a lot about it.

Alajuela, August 1993

2009-02-03T13:59:00.000-08:00

Alajuela Ward, Alajuela, Costa Rica, August 1993. I sit in the chapel reading something as I listen to my companion, Elder Brent Reed Jensen of Mountain Home, Idaho playing the piano before Sacrament meeting. Elder Jensen was a very strong piano player, a decent hard-working guy, and a lover of classic rock....especially Led Zeppelin.

He had played a fair number of hymns that morning, transitioning flawlessly between numbers without even pausing, so I was only half-listening when I heard some bars out of the pianoforte that confused me as I tried to place them in the hymnal, thinking perhaps he was playing one of the many hymns not found in the Spanish hymnal that we have in English (e.g. "God Save the King"), when what should my wondering ears suddenly hear but the opening notes of "Stairway to Heaven." I shot him a glance of "DUDE!" met by his mischievous back-at-ya grin. He didn't get past "what she came for" when he ended his "set" and stood up to start putting the hymn numbers in the ubiquitous hymn number placard. Several members came up to him and asked, "Elder, ¿Cuál himno era ése?" to which he responded, "La escalera al cielo." The name saved him because the members were used to hearing hymns played by him that aren't in the Spanish one..........I'll never forget that moment.....Led Zeppelin in sacrament meeting......I'm smiling about it right now.

I entered the MTC sixteen years ago today.

Lessons Learned from Billy Joel and God

2009-01-31T08:04:00.000-08:00

So, yesterday as I left the second-opinion-surgeon's office, in tears, after hearing that my pain has an unknown cause, that I'm too fat to operate on, but I'm "young and healthy enough" for lapband/gastric bypass surgery (wtf? that's way more major than lap cholesystectomy), that I should go to a seminar to learn more, and that I need to lose weight (which is what got me into this pain in the first place), I sat in my car and cried for a good ten minutes because of the pain, because the cold I have is making me feel like shit, because I drove three hours and spent $50 for an appointment that involved the dr taking to me and not even laying a palpitating hand on me, and because pain, long-term pain drains you.

After I got my eyes tear-free enough to drive and I paid for some gas at a ramshackle "El Cheapo" station in downtown Columbia staffed by a coughing hacking rice-pudding-eating Middle-Eastern woman who looked really pissed the entire time I was in her shop to buy an A&W, I got on I-20 and drove home. It was a blustery day in the Midlands. We're at the middlemark of Winter, and all is dead, gray, dreary, and dry. The ground crunches wherever you walk, all feels washed in a tinted-out feel like when you screwed with the tv knobs as a kid, and it feels like the Earth will never Spring up again. I loathe Winter. When I die someday, may it be the end of August when the sun is high, the forest green, leafy, and dank, and the Earth is full of life. O Lord, let me die in an August!

My thoughts on the drive were permeated with twinges of pain from my side since I couldn't take analgesics while driving. I elected to drive in silence, to be alone with my thoughts. I thought, probably the darkest thoughts of my life, that I understood how people in chronic pain could want to end their suffering by their own hand....but that I had too much to live for to ever consider that option.....also that my pain isn't always unbearable (this doesn't hurt anywhere nearly as bad as an acute gout attack). Don't worry, it was an academic exercise; this isn't a plea for help, rather, I felt like God was using someone else's vainglory to comfort me yesterday.

You want an explanation....I know, I know. Billy Joel isn't necessarily a tool in God's hands, but as the old yarn goes, "He moves in mysterious ways." "Come out Virginia" is devilishly catchy as a young man tries to get a Catholic girl to sleep with him, and many of his songs contain braggadocio-type lyrics that go against certain Christian mores. About halway home the silence grew too much to bear, so I turned on the radio, eschewing all the talk radio fiends dickering over anything Obama or Congress may do to fix the soapy economy for some comfort music....first Boston, then "Time of my Life" from that movie where somebody tried to put Baby in a corner, then Billy Joel's "Keeping the Faith" came into my car and the lyrics, while at first listen might seem like Boomer-glory day revisiting came to me as if from On High, the way in November Wyclef Jean might say, "and then my voice comes in Pow!, in the middle of the night, and this is what I told you for Him:"

You know the good ole days weren't always good
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems

Now I told you my reasons for the whole revival
Now I'm going outside to have an ice cold [root] beer in the shade
Oh, I'm going to listen to my 45's
Ain't it wonderful to be alive
When the rock 'n' roll plays, yeah
When the memory stays, yeah
I'm keeping the faith
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, keeping the faith
I'm keeping the faith, yes I am
You know I'm keeping the faith, oh yes I am
You know I'm keeping the faith, oh you are

Thank you Mr. Joel & thank you God for reminding me that it is wonderful to be alive, even in pain.

It's official, I'm getting old.

2009-01-21T16:08:00.000-08:00

I just saw a commercial for the latest Kidz Bop CD and I didn't know any of the songs that they were mutilating.

If I lived within driving/train distance of New York City

2009-01-18T10:05:00.000-08:00

This is where I'd be Monday night:

http://www.jalc.org/about/news/2007/pdf/2008-12-18_Jan%2019%20Event%20Announcement.pdf

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/16/marsalis.inauguration/index.html

Wynton Marsalis is a dynamic speaker and a gifted musician. Man, I miss New Orleans during Carnival season.

Why you want your kid to take the school bus

2009-01-16T11:21:00.000-08:00

So, a recent article about schools cutting back by cutting bus service should give you pause if this idea has been discussed in your district.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/16/school.bus.cuts/index.html

From the article:

A 2007 congressional report outlined the risks of taking children off school buses. Citing the Transportation Research Board, the report said about 12.5 million students -- roughly a quarter of the nation's K-12 students -- took about 5.5 billion school bus trips between 1995 and 2005.

On those trips, there were 1,368 fatal crashes, only 97 of which killed a bus driver or passenger, the report said.

Other data in the report show that an average of 20 students died annually between 1991 and 1999, and 15 of those were killed boarding or exiting the bus. About three times as many students got to school by other means, but the death toll among those students was almost 40 times higher. See how many died driving or riding with an adult »

"If we talk about the cost of lives, we want to put these kids on school buses," said Dashney, who has 40 years of experience in traffic safety and student transportation.

Gallbladder Problems

2009-01-14T22:10:00.001-08:00

So, for the last two months I've had biliary dyskinesia. I haven't much felt like posting. When I'm my normal self again, not in constant pain, I'll start posting again. Until then, it's going to be sporadic.

Happy Twelfth Night

2009-01-06T09:18:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of Mardi Gras. We will be putting up our decorations and getting stares from the neighbors today.....I even have C9-sized yellow, purple, and green lights for the house to replace the Christmas lights (which at 7 watts x 100 bulbs x 12 hours a day added about $50 to our December light bill; I got a timer for the Mardi Gras lights).

I miss living in New Orleans this time of year for the weather, for Carnival, and for the good times I had with Layton and Amanda Alldredge, Mike and Kristin Lindsey, Clay & Amy Larson, Matt & Amber Stecher, Gove and Nikki Allen, and Kasey and Brent (when he would actually come and not gripe) Bastian.

Mardi Gras madness, New Orleans
'Throw me something mister,' the crowds all scream

Hail to Bacchus and all his krewe

The party don't stop, the whole night through

Hail to Bacchus and New Orleans!

Let's Put Paul Coverdell in the Senate and Put Wyche Fowler out

2009-01-03T09:23:00.003-08:00

2:15 in is where the old lady sings.....classic stuff.

"My wife would like that"

2009-01-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

FISH SHOULD BE DEAD BEFORE DEBONING

A Call to Boycott ABC Family

2008-12-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

Here's an email I just sent to ABC Family. If you agree with me, please sign a comment declaring your participation in the boycott. I won't watch until they apologize and correct their commercials and programming to make it so I feel like I can trust the channel to not show something inappropriate to my kids.

Dear ABC Family,

So, I’m watching Cars with my son and daughter the other night on your network and along comes an ad for Victoria’s Secret. The women in the ad are very attractive and the lingerie carefully selected for them accentuates all their positives; the commercial’s producers are to be commended for their mastery of the attention-grabbing visuals of the erotic medium.

I didn’t like the question my daughter asked me though, “Dad, why are those women dressed like that?” That’s not the kind of question I’d like to answer, yet, to my six-year-old daughter. I was mildly miffed that the sexy outfits were on display on a “Family” channel during a “Christmas” movie (what Cars has to do with Christmas, other than toy sales for Disney, you’ll have to explain to me), but I was willing to let it go since it wasn’t over-the-top sexual.

What got me upset enough to write this letter was the commercial for Arby’s that aired shortly thereafter. During a family movie, on a family channel, during a family hour, you showed a man reclining on a bed surrounded by candles talking to his wife in the bathroom. Sexy music plays when she exits the bathroom in an Arby’s outfit, holding a tray of food, and the phallic Arby’s hat logo suddenly appears over his head, stiffens, and makes a boing noise as if his erection engorged so quickly as to be audible. What the ****, people!?

How dare you show this on a family channel!

It’s bad enough that you show Greek and that other show about an unwed teenage pregnant girl with “Viewer Discretion Advised” before each one on a damned family channel, but you have the gall to call it “A New Kind of Family.” Keep your “new kind of family” away from mine. Might I suggest you ask what audience you are after and change your channel’s name to fit that.

You are NOT a family channel. You are evil, because you call evil good.

Dr. Mac Williams

The commercial in question:

'Twasn't all bad

2008-12-24T10:51:00.001-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/23/cookie.factory.reopens/index.html

This makes me more prone to purchase Lance products over Keebler. The debit card gift was a classy thing to do.

My 2009 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

2008-12-20T10:02:00.000-08:00

My votes:

Dale Murphy (YES):
I am completely biased because I consider Dale Murphy to be my all-time hero. His arm was one of the best in either league. Were it not for Mike Schmidt he could have been THE star of the National League at the time. As I said before, only he and Cal Ripken hit 20 or more homers every year from 1982-1990. He hit 40 homers once and 30 several times. He did make the 30-30 club back when it had few members (1983). He wound up with 398 homers. I'm not sure, but I think he is the all-time leader in home runs lost to rain-outs. That might be wrong, but I think I remember him passing Bobby Bonds for first place. He won back to back MVP's. He played in 740 consecutive games, the 12th longest streak ever. He was an All-Star in 1980, 82-87 and the top vote getter in 1985; he started five times. He hit .302 in 1983 when that was good enough for 6th place in the league. We cannot judge him by today's offense benchmarks. Imagine if someone hit .302 now and was 6th in the league! He led the National League in HR 1984-85, in RBI 82-83, runs in 1985, and OPS in 1983. He won five straight gold gloves from 1982-86 and four straight silver slugger awards from 1982-86. His number (#3) has been retired by the Atlanta Braves.But he shouldn't be measured solely for his on-field accomplishments. Let's not forget the class and honor that he brought to the game. He was a tireless supporter of the Huntington Disease Foundation, the 65 Roses Club, MDA, Make-A-Wish, The March of Dimes and many many others. He won the Lou Gehrig Award in 1985 and the Roberto Clemente Award in 1988. He was never ejected from a baseball game. He thanked reporters for interviewing him. In Philadelphia once, a stadium security guard didn't recognize him and wouldn't let him into the stadium. He just laughed it off. I can only imagine what Barry Bonds might have done in that situation. Murphy didn't have an "All suites" clause in his contract, nor did he have his team guarantee him charter jet flights home to his ranch during the season like Kevin Brown. I mean, he even had kind words to say about people like John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, and even Ozzie Virgil. I think we should point out that when Murphy finished 4th in homers in 1986 that he only had 29 homers. In 1987 he hit 44, but Andre Dawson had 49, so Murphy's awesome power that year was overshadowed in the NL, and by McGwire’s 49 and Jorge Bell’s 47. Homers were much harder to come by in that day and age. No one hit 50 from 1977 (George Foster) until 1990 (Cecil Fielder). If Murphy had connected twice more in his career, I think that he might've gotten into the Hall.Murphy was universally respected by all players (to be redundant). Imagine this scene: It's 1991, Braves vs. Phillies. Otis Nixon gets beaned by the Phillies pitcher next time up after hitting a homer. The bottom half of the inning, Tom Glavine has to respond and hit the first Phillies batter. Only it's Dale Murphy. He can't do it; no way. So he does the meanest thing he can bring himself to do; he throws Murph four high and inside fastballs to brush him back and put him on. Murphy got the base, and Glavine got the boot by the ump. Glavine said the ump later told him, "I only let you throw four, because that was Murphy and because I knew you wouldn't." It was not merely because they had been teammates, but because Murphy was so respected that he was off limits (by the umpires) for stunts like that. Glavine is a class act too, he's in the Hall for sure, and Murphy will make it somehow, someday, someway.If anyone deserves to get in, without the numbers we're used to seeing, he does, for being the nicest, most polite gentleman to ever grace the field.Murph's stats: http://www.baseball-reference.com/m/murphda05.shtml

Rickey Henderson (YES):
I predict that Henderson will get the highest voting percentage ever. He is the all-time steals and run leader, and when he retired he held the record for walks. He was always good, and always a game breaker. No need for a long defense of this one. I just want to hear from the people who think he doesn’t belong, why they think he doesn’t deserve it.

[From wikipedia] On May 18, 2007, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Oakland general manager Billy Beane was considering adding Henderson to the roster for one game in September, provided it did not "infringe on the integrity of the roster or of the season," so that Henderson could retire as an Oakland A's player. A month later, Henderson appeared to reject the overture, saying, "One day? I don't want one day. I want to play again, man. I don't want nobody's spot... I just want to see if I deserve to be out there. If I don't, just get rid of me, release me. And if I belong, you don't have to pay me but the minimum — and I'll donate every penny of that to some charity. So, how's that hurtin' anybody?... Don't say goodbye for me... When I want that one day they want to give me so bad, I'll let you know."

I miss Rickey.

Bert Blyleven (NO):
While many people clearly favor letting him in, and he was impressive on the Twins, I just don’t see it.

David Cone (NO):
Big game pitcher though he was, he never put it together enough for me to deserve Cooperstown. No awards, not even 200 wins; sure, he had lots of Championships, but those weren’t due to the “David Cone Show.”

Andre Dawson (YES):
I think Murphy, Dawson, and Rice were all part of an era that suffers from the effects of the homerun surge that followed. Dawson terrified pitchers, was one of the best fielders around, and could absolutely change the game with his bat. He has 400 homeruns and 300 stolen bases…there’s only two others who have ever done that: Bonds and Mays.

Mark Grace (NO):
Solid for a long time, but never came up big in the clutch (save the 2001 WS). 2,500 hits doesn’t quite make it. If he had gotten to 3,000, yes. But he didn’t, and 500 short is very short.

Tommy John (NO):
He pitched a long time….but his losses are really high. Sure he almost had 300 wins, and his WL totals are similar to Nolan Ryan’s, but Ryan had other stats that overwhelmed opponents, whereas John just pitched a really really long time.

Don Mattingly (YES):
If you compare Mattingly’s stats with HOFer Kirby Puckett, you’ll see there’s not much difference. And Mattingly had MVP clout.
Career Hitting[7]
G AB H 2 B 3B HR R RBI SB BB SO AVG OBP SLG OPS
1,785 7,003 2,153 442 20 222 1,007 1,099 14 588 444 .307 .358 .471 .82
Vs. Puckett 1783 7244 2304 414 57 207 1071 1085 134 450 965 .318 .360 .477 124

Mark McGwire (Undecided):
I want to see what happens with the other guys like Sosa, Palmeiro, and Bonds, before I vote for or against McGwire.

Jack Morris (YES):
He started three times in the 1991 series, including the 10-inning masterpiece in Game 7. He went on to win again with the Jays. He was solid at the end of his career and was a big game pitcher. He deserves the Hall.

Tim Raines (NO):
As good as he was, he falls into my Strawberry, Gooden, Davis category. His off-the-field failures soured me on him….and he wasn’t feared.

Jim Rice (YES):
Even though he was not very nice when I met him, if I vote for Murphy, I have to vote for Rice. An article supporting him can be found here: http://proxy.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?id=2268868

Lee Smith (NO):
Never a contender, crappy ERA for a “dominant” reliever, and most of his “saves” were one-inning deals. I never liked him and his lack of votes for awards show I wasn’t alone.

Alan Trammell (NO):
Middling consistency doesn’t a Hall of Famer make.

Dave Parker (NO, but I feel bad about it):
He’s got great stats, and had he used less coke, he might already be in….he was good, but I can’t elect him to the Hall of Fame on what-could’ve-beens.

People I don’t think even deserve to be on the ballot:

Harold Baines, good player but not HOF material
Jay Bell, yeah right
Ron Gant, I still think that motorcycle accident ruined him
Jesse Orosco, imposible, no lo merece
Dan Plesac, not even if he were a Brave
Greg Vaughn, I had such high hopes…I smell steroids on him
Mo Vaughn, good for awhile, but no.
Matt Williams, solid, consistent, never awe-inspiring.

From the mind of a six-year-old

2008-12-20T09:18:00.000-08:00

"Dad, where did Santa Claus go to college?"

--"I don't know that he did."

"Well, he had to learn how to fly somewhere"

Bullshit

2008-12-15T20:24:00.000-08:00

Per my wife's request, the Playboy cover image has been hereby hotlinked.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/12/15/playboy.virgin.mary.transcript/index.html

Playboy claims the above image isn't meant to portray the Virgin Mary. Bullshit. "Te adoramos, Maria" means "We adore you Maria."

The model's name might be Maria, but this is clearly meant to sexualize the Virgin; it evokes countless images, paintings, icons, and such of the Holy Mother. The breast she is baring isn't to suckle the Savior, her robe is being opened just like the purchaser hopes to open her "lessened gates."

Shame on you, Playboy....but then again, you lost any sense of shame in the 1950's.

UPDATE:

I will concede to my critic that swearing to defend Jesus's Mom is wrong, but I'm a Christian precisely because I'M NOT PERFECT. Calling someone a "virgin" does not sexualize them, indeed, the virginal state would mean an absence of sex. In my mind the word "virgin" doesn't conjure up images of coitus with the unexperienced. This image is akin to Madonna's "Like a Virgin." The woman, virginlike (ergo, highly desirable to the male viewer) offers the parting of her robe for a sexual experience. She is clearly not a virgin, but takes on that appearance of one for the seductive game.

My outrage here isn't with the image so much as the denial by Playboy that it isn't suggestive of images of the Virgin Mary. Given the overwhelming numbers of women named "Mary, Marie, Maria" or some version thereof in the world, the cover seeks to strike a common chord with every man who's ever lain with a woman named Maria and irreverently joked, "Te adora, mi Maria."

People can insult Christianity all they want, but don't deny it when you get called to task for things done in poor taste. It's the lie that rubs, not so much the image.

A Recommendation

2008-12-13T14:34:00.001-08:00

If you're a journalist, you should always, always, always, read your headlines aloud to someone else for approval:

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/12/13/news/local/21-meatpacking.txt

Update

2008-12-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

So, apparently, you can lose weight too quickly. After losing 20 lbs inside of a month, I have some kind of gall bladder disease. I don't have stones that can be detected on an ultrasound, and my abdominal CT scan showed no tumors, abcesses, or liver flukes, but it still hurts like a mofo whenever I eat eggs or lie on my side.

DIETING SUCKS!

South Beach Diet is suspended until I get this problem fixed.

I Can't Dance, I Can't Walk

2008-11-24T19:57:00.001-08:00

Congratulations!

2008-11-24T12:33:00.000-08:00

So, if everything went as it should today, my cousin Robby got married in Paraguay today. If there were no last minute bribes needing to be paid, I welcome my first Hispanic relative into the family.

¡Felicidades primo!

Perspectiva

2008-11-22T15:12:00.000-08:00

Llegamos a la casa humilde de una familia de la rama Guácimo a las cuatro de la tarde. El padre, quien trabajaba en el corte de banano desde el alba hasta la tarde, nos enseñó un verdadero tesoro, un estereo nuevo que acababa de comprar.

Era lindísimo, un estereo de moda para ese entonces, con lucitas brillantes en todas partes, dos parlantes enormes, cassette, AM/FM y CD. Él había sudado litros de sudor para poder comprar algo que a mí me cuesta dos días de trabajo y sólo sudo en el trabajo si las otras profesores tienen frío del aire acondicionado y lo apagan. No quiero llamarlo "orgullo" lo que ví aquel día en los ojos de mi hermano (en la fé), pero el sentido de confianza y satisfacción del hombre y de su mujer eran palpables. No tenían discos compactos, pero no les importaba, ahora tuvieron un tocadiscoscompactos; podrían comprarlos ya con más sudor y ahorros. El futuro les era lleno de pensamientos de los lujos que iban a alcanzar. Los vecinos se congregaban en la puertilla de la casita para escuchar.

Pasamos una hora allí mientras nos enseñaban todo lo que tenía que ver con el estereo: los botones, la calidad de los parlantes (incluso el volumen máximo, por supuesto), el casset y hasta nos enseñaron la caja de la máquina. En ese momento ví una calcomonía pegada a la caja y mi compañero de la misión la vió a la vez. Abrió la boca para decirles lo que quería decir la calcomonía, pero lo callé, en inglés, con un "Elder, don't you dare tell him." Como no hablaban inglés, ni la familia ni los vecinos, todo el mundo esperaba que yo les dijera lo que le había dicho a mi compa. El padre, sospechoso, me preguntó, "Elder Williams, qué quiere decir 'Refurbished' (Ray-fur-BEE-shed)." Pasó un microsegundo en que tuve que decidir si iba a decirle la verdad o mentirle. Escogí y le dije, "Hermano, es una palabra especial que quiere decir que es de tan alta calidad que lo inspeccionaron dos veces."

Espero que Dios me perdone el pecadillo.

South Beach Update Week Three

2008-11-19T05:45:00.000-08:00

Weight on Monday October 27, 2008 = 425.3 lbs.
Weight on Wednesday November 19, 2008 = 405.3 lbs.

Total loss = 20 lbs.
WLPD= .86 ppd
WLPW= 6.66__
% of body weight = 4.7%

I had to switch to Phase II of the diet. I was getting massive muscle cramps every night from a lack of carbs, and I was getting really damned bored. I'm eating some carbs now and I feel much better, but I still don't feel any better than I did when I started the diet.

Dieting sucks. I hate it. I hate it more than the Dodgers, more than injustice, more than canned tuna; hell, I hate it more than dieting.

Life on Mars

2008-11-16T11:54:00.000-08:00

Not that it's anything new, but ABC's retelling of the BBC series Life on Mars has me hooked. For those unfamiliar with either show, it concerns detective Sam Tyler, who after being struck by a car in 2008, wakes to find himself in 1973. He is the same person, retains all his knowledge of the future, is a detective using modern techniques and procedures in an "old-school" environment, and occasionally sees a little robot toy thing following him.

The show is filmed in a yellow washed-out style that makes it look like old photographs from the era, the music is just awesome, and it's a thinking-man's show. You don't know if he's dead, in hell, purgatory, insane, and so on.

I recommend it, and you can watch all the episodes you've missed online.

Grumpy Advice for Applicants for Foreign Language Tenure-Track Professor Jobs

2008-11-13T12:23:00.000-08:00

When you apply for a job as a professor, and your field is in a foreign language, DO NOT have your letters of recommendation sent in languages other than the official language of instruction of the university. A letter in German, Italian, Arabic, Farsi, Rumanian, or Greek isn't going to help you, at all. I'm a professor of Spanish and all my letters were in English. If I were applying to a school in Spain, I'd ask people to write letters in Spanish, or provide certified translations. It seems pretentious, and not everyone on search committees might speak the language. Some colleges make it a regular practice to invite people from outside the Department to sit on search committees. If your recommender cannot write in another language, by all means, pay someone to do a certified confidential translation.

Also, if you've earned a degree from a foreign university, such as a Diplome de etudes profundises, provide a local equivalent. While I know that the degree means "Diploma of deep studies," I don't know how that translates into the American academic system. I could go and look it up, but when I have 80 applications times 20 pages to read, I don't want to have to take the time. Help your committee out.

If it's a teaching college, don't start your letter with, "In my dissertation..." I cannot stress enough the need to tailor your letter to each institution. Know your audience. Look and see what kinds of classes are being and have been offered recently in your field. K N O W your audience.

Be smart; keep it simple. ¡Buena suerte! (trans. "Good luck!")

A "Sort of" Rastafarian Tribute to Judy Blume

2008-11-11T06:15:00.000-08:00

I especially enjoy the part where he stops singing when he walks past authentic rastas. For further reading I recommend:

1. Mario Vargas Llosa, "My Son the Rastafarian"
2. Timothy White, Catch a Fire

Weight-loss update

2008-11-10T04:55:00.000-08:00

Weight on Monday October 27, 2008 = 425.3 lbs.
Weight on Monday November 10, 2008 = 407.1 lbs.

Total loss = 18.2 lbs.
% of body weight = 4.3%
PPD= 1.3 lbs.

I don't feel any different other than I'm eating less naturally, i.e., I get full quicker than when not dieting. No improvement in quality of life.

Dieting sucks.

Two Classics

2008-11-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

Oh, how I love Bubb Rubb, how he almost wrecks when he pulls away at the end. Sigh. WOOOO WOOOOOOOOO

OBAMA IS NOT THE DAMNED ANTI-CHRIST

2008-11-06T17:16:00.000-08:00

Alright, knee-jerk reactionary conservatives, Obama is not the damned Anti-Christ. If you actually read the Bible instead of just talking about how much you love Jesus, you would know this. I challenge anyone who calls Obama the Anti-Christ to give me a Biblical definition of what it means, including the original meaning in the Greek. Hell, I challenge any of you to tell me where in the Bible the word antichrist even appears.

According to Paul, and maybe Daniel depending on how you read him, the antichrist will try and rebuild the temple, so unless Obama plans to raze the Dome of the Rock, get out Solomon's blueprints, rebuild the thing, go sit on his ass in the Holy of Holies while demanding we all go sacrifice sheep and doves to him for our sins, he's not the farking antichrist. Mindless sheep.

The Second Coming isn't going to happen in the next four years, or eight if he's re-elected; too much Scripture isn't fulfilled, which again, you'd know if you read them. Enough already. The Anti-Christ is real enough; it's anyone who puts himself in place of the Savior and works against him. I don't think Obama or any other president is the Anti-Christ. Isn't it a little presumptive of you to assume that he/they'll be from America? Why not The Gambia, Bhutan, the Maldives, or even Pitcairn Island? Clinton was the antichrist in 1992, Kennedy in 1960, I assume many a Southern lips slandered Lincoln with that moniker. You could fill libraries with lists (in many languages) with the names of election winners that people have called the antichrist.

Ignorance is my enemy.

Monsieur, does your dog bite?

2008-11-05T12:57:00.001-08:00

This is me being silly

Enjoy!

Audacity is awesome and free.

Ok

2008-11-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

Now that we've elected a president who can separate his personal beliefs from his politics, and I've spent far too much time delineating my firm belief in secular government, it's time for me to clarify a few things.

While I think the government should stay out of legislating and enforcing morality, I should mention that although I don't believe certain things should be illegal, I think many are sinful. For example, I don't think two unmarried people who want to have sex with each other should face civil punishment, but it is fornication and a sin, and I cannot "support" them in their selfish decision, for I view sex without a marriage covenant as wholly selfish, and no amount of sophistry or soothsaying will convince me otherwise; my loins burned like everyone else's in my youth, but *I* waited until marriage. Abortion is an abomination and horrific. I want nothing to do with someone who has one (unless they truly repent), because there is nothing so selfish as killing an innocent, but that belief comes from my religious creed, so I can't force said belief on others. If people want the right to die when they are terminally ill, so be it, but it's not for me. Get drunk, get high, waste your money and impede your ability to exercise your divinely-granted free will all you want, but I'll not join you in your partying; I want my faculties about me. Adulterers cannot be trusted, but shouldn't go to jail (though I think an adulterer forfits rights in a divorce by nature of breaking the covenant). I could go on and on. Just because I voted for Barack Obama does not mean that I abide or am tolerant of sin. (Notice I didn't say sinners)

Before you think I'm condemning others, those who know me well, know that I don't condemn other people, because I am not perfect. But you don't have to be perfect to judge; that is a fallacy, in spite of the common translation of John 8. I do judge actions, and I know which ones I won't do because of my faith, which is wholly separate from my politics. Damnit, we should want to be good and serve the Lord and keep His commandments because we love Him, and not because of the law or centuries-old cultural hegemony from Judeo-Christian enculturation of our nation. Do what is right; choose the right because you want to be a good person. If someone sins you can love them and still not approve of their actions. They won't care about your approval, and not-approving isn't the same thing as "tolerating." I love my friends, in spite of decisions they make that I find sinful. I don't huck rocks at them because they didn't resist, rather I try and have an influence on them, for good, by the best example I can muster in the face of my own innumerable imperfections. If they ask me what I think, I will tell them, and it can seem blunt, but my judgment isn't unrighteous, and I'm no better than they are, because all sins are the same to the Lord (save murder and adultery). Some have harsher consequences (telling a white lie vs heroin addiction), but my sins of pride and swearing are just as bad as any others. I'm just trying to get better. Calling out others' sins is the work of prophets and apostles; I am neither. I'm just a man who sees a world full of sin, full of people who care nothing for the wisdom of the commandments (Love the Lord thy God, Love thy neighbor as thyself), and I'm a man who sees himself struggling against life, his own sins, and willful ignorance. Sin is sin. You have to struggle against it, against the toils of life, and against ignorance in yourself and others.

Obama is not a savior, but he's the right man for the job, right now. For the record, the next person who tells me (in person) that Obama might be the Anti-Christ will not like my reaction.

WTF?

2008-11-05T08:52:00.000-08:00

Stupified. Speechless. That was such bad acting, oh my goodness! They didn't even have name tags.

Relief

2008-11-04T22:11:00.000-08:00

I don't know about yall, but I'm more glad that Cynthia McKinney didn't win than I am that Obama won.

I Think I'd Be Smarter

2008-11-04T21:55:00.000-08:00

If National Geographic published weekly rather than monthly.

South Beach Update after One Week

2008-11-03T10:36:00.000-08:00

My weight 7 days ago = 425.3 lbs.
My weight today = 413.8 lbs.

Total weight loss = 11.5 lbs.

I don't feel any better, not sleeping all that well with CPAP and getting bad leg cramps every night.

Dieting sucks.

One Year Gone and a Request

2008-10-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

On October 30, 2007, John McLarty Williams, Jr., CEO of eFolder Inc., husband to Laura Buckner Williams, and Father to Mac and Susanna Williams, died of Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease at age 57. Dad's unexpected death left us missing his dynamic, caring, gregarious, and adventuresome presence.

My Dad was an adventurer; he loved to travel the world and took advantage of every opportunity that came his way. And yet, his love of globetrotting always took second-place to his lifelong endeavor to help others; and whether with his hands, or by “lending” someone money, he felt his greatest joy when he was in the service of his fellow men.

My Dad lived his life the best he could, and tried to help out other people along the way. He was a team builder; he loved to involve others in what he was doing. Granted, he did love being in charge, or helping out at the higher echelons of power, but, my Dad’s purpose in life was to serve other people. After Hurricane Katrina, he would work far beyond the capacity that his body could handle, and would pay for that sacrifice physically with painfully swollen feet and ankles. As an employer of people, he took his responsibility to other people’s families very seriously, oftentimes foregoing paying himself so that he could meet payroll. He hired people that others wouldn’t even have interviewed, and trained them in new careers, changing their lives along the way. He liked helping people help themselves. He was a fisher of men.

On this, the anniversary of his death, my family is pleased to announce that the administration of Coker College has accepted our proposal to create an endowed scholarship in my dad's honor for Foreign Language majors and minors at Coker College to study abroad; The John McLarty Williams Jr. Endowed Scholarship. In order to have a permanent endowed scholarship we need a corpus of $10,000. Those monies, once capitalized, will generate around 5% per annum to be used to help Coker's foreign language majors complete their required semester abroad studies. I don't have the resources to fund it myself, so I'm asking anyone whose life my dad made better to donate, please.

The scholarship is to be awarded to a full-time student who is a rising junior or rising sophomore with a major or minor in foreign language. The scholarship should be used for study abroad in the foreign language and is intended to help Coker students experience the world outside the friendly confines of the Pee Dee region of South Carolina.. In honor of my dad's commitment to service, students are encouraged to include service learning as part of their foreign language study.

We recognize that right now is not the most fortuitous time in which to solicit charitable contributions, but we ask that you make the sacrifice that you can. Your donation will be tax-deductible, will fund a permanent endowment in Johnny Mac's name, and will help change the lives of students who might not be able to afford study abroad otherwise. If the economy prevents you from donating at the moment, please remember us when things get better for you and your family.

If you can afford to give, please do, generously.

Make checks payable to Coker College, and mail them to:

The John McLarty Williams Jr. Endowed Scholarship Fund
c/o Frank Bush
Coker College
300 E. College Ave.
Hartsville, SC 29550

Even though I despise Moveon.org

2008-10-27T11:03:00.000-07:00

This is funny. A friend sent this to me:

Be warned, it contains some harsh profanity, which even though it's bleeped out, is still fairly distinguishable, and is sure to offend some of the sensitive-Mormon set.

Alright, Paul

2008-10-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

So, a few weeks ago my best friend Paul Dunn, a great American, kind of not-too-subtly rebuked me for the lack of updates about my dieting adventures. Truth is, I haven't been dieting. The last year has been hell, and as I'm a stress eater, dieting was an afterthought.

Well his stinging reminder has motivated me to go back on the South Beach Diet, effective 7AM this morning. Today's weight = 425.3 lbs.

Juan Carlos, our bet is on; you'd better get on board, or I'm gonna be the owner of Starcraft 2, if and when the vaporware materializes.

I'm also going to fire up the old Maybeexercisewillhelp blog, even though I am severely hobbled by a nagging achilles tendonitis that I got while climbing that big hill in Washington D.C. to get to Howard every day. That I got tendonitis from walking is probably due to my weight and not stretching, so all these feedback systems need to be addressed by lessening the burden on the bod.

Getting old sucks; it's inevitable. Being fat is partly controllable; I'll never be skinny, but if I weighed 325, life would be very different. My first goal is 399.8, or what I weighed last Christmas Day.

I think I've decided

2008-10-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

For years now I've been among the people who made jokes about criminals getting "what they deserved in prison," making clear inference that they would receive unwanted sexual advances by fellow inmates. I used to sing along to Sublime's song "Date Rape," and think it was funny that the date rapist had this happen to him:

One night in jail it was getting late/he was buttraped by a large inmate/and he screamed/but the guards paid no attention to his cries/

and

The moral of this date rape story/it does not pay to be drunk horny/but that's the way/it had to be/they locked him up and threw away the key/but I can't take pity on men of his kind/even though he now takes it in the behind.

I can't believe I ever thought that was just or funny. Anal rape is rape. Prison is punishment enough; how can we call ourselves a just and justice loving people if we think rape is funny or deserved, no matter how awful the crime? Shame on me.

What the hell was I thinking?

2 Samuel 1:26

2008-10-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

Go read this:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/24/polygamy.investigation/index.html

When I first read this article, the first thing I thought of was Jorge Luis Borges's short story, "La intrusa," or translated, "The Interloper." The sexual dynamics of shared love have to trouble all relationships. I cannot imagine a lack of jealousy between people who choose to, or are forced by traditions, share their sexual partner with others. This system seems to work for them.

I've been thinking about the political repercussions of the sea change in legal recognition of same-sex marriage in our country. One challenge I've yet to hear from the right is that a redefinition of legal marriage opens the door to other non-traditional unions, including polygamy and polyandry, group marriages, incestual marriages, and so on.

It would seem to this non-legally-trained citizen that the recognition of same-sex marriages stems from respect for equal protection clauses in state constitutions and from the judicial precedent set by the Texas case that the state cannot regulate sexual morality between consenting adults.

Reynolds vs. The United States was the famous challenge of the Morrill Act and the Poland Law that made polygamy and bigamy illegal in the United States and its territories. Here is an excerpt from that decision from a neutral website commenting on the issue:

"Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and,until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people. At common law, the second marriage was always void, and from the earliest history of England polygamy has been treated as an offence against society . . . In the face of all this evidence, it is impossible to believe that the constitutional guaranty of religious freedom was intended to prohibit legislation in respect to this most important feature of social life. Marriage, while from its very nature a sacred obligation, is nevertheless, in most civilized nations, a civil contract, and usually regulated by law."

I think that the growing acceptance of same-sex marriages will lead to new legal challenges to this court precedent, and it will be overturned, though I doubt greatly that my Church would ever embrace polygamy again. I know that sharing my love with someone else would be inconceivable. The inevitable outcome of all these loosening of the definition of "marriage" as a civil recognition of what used to be a sacred obligation is that marriage will lose its current meaning. I foresee group marriages between groups of people, marriages to animals, marriages between animals (especially as they start to become inheritors of property), polygamy, polyandry, and so on.

Funny that we arrest and charge people for openly saying they're married to more than one person, but if they never marry, the state does nothing.

For the record, I am not in favor of polygamy, and I think the practices of forced marriages and marriage of minors to adults are crimes. I feel that reassigning wives and claiming wives as spiritual spouses so you can have sex with them but not support them temporally are sins. I do not sympathize with any polygamist groups, sects, or doctrines. I just think that constitutionally, the First Amendment protects homosexuals, polygamists, polyandrists, and other ways of living foreign to my own. Whether the state should formally recognize those, or any, unions is for the courts to decide, but even though I don't care for the practices, I don't think the government can justify prohibiting them without a Federal Constitutional Amendment.

What do yall think? Am I wrong?

Some Song by Kansas and Burial Rite #1

2008-10-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

So, we had our Fall break here at Coker last week. With the one-year anniversary of my father's death approaching and with the iPod box containing his ashes staring at me from my bookshelf, I decided that it was time to go and scatter his ashes somewhere important to him......really I mean to say somewhere important to me.

Funerals and ceremonies are for the living. The dead care nothing for where their moldering remains are lain. When I considered all the places that my dad "would have liked" I realized that his favorite fishing hole would be a great place to scatter the little baggie of ashes and bone bits that my mom had given me in the Spring.

I could've just put them in my yard, but I felt this drive to put them somewhere more "meaningful" (whatever that means) in an effort to give me some catharsis from the trauma of having my father ripped away from my life. My dad and I had some great times fishing off

View Larger Map

Apalachicola, Florida,so I decided to go hold an ad hoc ceremony on a boat bouncing in the waves right in a place loaded with good memories: Bird Island, Apalachicola Bay, Florida. If you look in the above map. the island shown below (Bird Island) is barely visible to the west of the gap between St. Vincent Island and St. George Island. This is an old photo because last week the island was over a half-mile long.

View Larger Map

So, since we only have one car, and since Mickelle's parents and sister came into town for the weekend, I convinced my grandfather and my uncle to drive over from Atlanta, Georgia to pick me up. We then drove ten hours down I-95 and across I-10 to get there. My dad's good friend John Mitchell drove down from Atlanta separately. Friday morning we got up early and met our fishing guide, and my dad's good friend, Captain Jimmy Maxwell, at the Scipio Creek Marina and boarded the boat for a day of fishing and paying homage to my fallen father.

We started out well, Captain Jimmy got all the baitfish we'd need with the first cast of his net. From there we went out into the bay and began catching speckled trout and white trout. I was using a double-lure rig and four times I caught two fish at the same time. We caught lots of cats, ladyfish, croakers, a bluefish, a mackerel, a couple of ground mullets, and a whiting or two before the day was done. Papa (my dad's dad) landed a 27" redfish; all in all we bagged 60 fish.

At about 2PM we motored out to Bird Island found a quiet place on the bay side of the island and held the service. I started by talking about my dad, everyone said something nice, and I commented that his faults were no worse than anyone I knew and especially anyone on that boat, and that my memories of him are good, and that he was missed, and I wished he could've been there fishing with us. Papa and I then scattered his ashes in the water, and I said a prayer, asking Heavenly Father that that portion of my dad's remains might nourish the Earth and help replenish it. Captain Jimmy asked to say a prayer and Papa and I embraced as he asked that Heavenly Father bless all of my dad's family.

After that we fished for a little while longer and then headed back to shore, sunburnt and feeling relieved that the mourning process had been furthered a little.

I still miss my dad. I can't believe it's been a year. Damnit!

UPDATE: I can't write well today. Pardon my sophomoric language; I couldn't help myself.

You Must Have Really Done a Lot of Research

2008-10-20T14:13:00.003-07:00

12-Year-Old Boy Scouts Volunteer To Give Women Breast Exams

Man Secretly Names His Baby "Sarah McCain Palin." His Name Is "Mud"

2008-10-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=66550&catid=2

Geraldine Mondale Ferraro
Joseph Gore Lieberman
John Edwards Kerry
and
Lloyd Dukakis Benson can commiserate

Told You I Was Hardcore

2008-10-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

1 minute, 13 seconds

Created by Bunk Beds Pedia

The Fruits of Fearmongering

2008-10-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/223708.php
watch the embedded video, or this post won't make sense.

What startles me the most is not that she thinks Obama's an Arab, but that McCain doesn't call her out for calling him an Arab, as if being Arab were a bad thing.

McCain says, "No, no, no ma'am, no ma'am. He's a, he's a decent family man citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on, on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign is all about. He's not. Thank you."

That final emphatic "he's not" is directed straight at the general US fear (read, hatred) of Arabs, of the assumption that they're all terrorists.

He didn't have time to craft a nuanced rebuttal of her statement; he had to shut her down immediately. She is an elderly citizen who is obviously confused and gullible. But, this is the product and endgame of the machinations of politicians who employ fear to win elections. Mix a little nationalism together with a little fearmongering and a touch of brinkmanship and you get Gayle Quinnell, registered voter.

Why I Continue to Support the Death Penalty

2008-10-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/10/14/toofat.execution/index.html

from the above article:

Cooey and a then-17-year-old accomplice were convicted of the brutal murders of Wendy Offredo and Dawn McCreery, students at the University of Akron. The men had been tossing concrete slabs onto Interstate 77, and one of them struck Offredo's car.

Pretending to "rescue" the women, Cooey and Clinton Dickens took the victims to a remote field, according to prosecutors. There, the students were subjected to 3½ hours of rape, torture, stabbing and fatal bludgeoning. Cooey carved an "X" into the stomachs of both women, prosecutors said.

When you do such horrible acts, you forfeit your life. He tried to escape from prison in 2005. Locking this man away, warehousing the term of his mortal life isn't fair to those people who risk their lives as his jailors, and to the public should he escape. Imagine if he did, and your daughter had an x carved into her belly.

Some people deserve to die. Cooey reaped the bitter harvest of his actions today....finally.

Pagan Baby

2008-10-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

How did I ever make it 34 years without ever having heard "Pagan Baby" by CCR? They're one of my favorite bands too! I don't get how this happened. If you haven't heard it before, go listen to it now, but only on a good stereo.

Don't bother looking at the video, some idiot just made it full of images of pot. Listen to the music.

¡Ya, Basta!

2008-10-13T11:47:00.000-07:00

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm sick of all the campaigning. I want the election to be here now. If I see another political commercial telling me how "evil" some candidate is, it's gonna be five million too many.

I like to watch Jeopardy. Lately, every single stinking commercial is for politicians. And, except in the case of Attorney General Roy Cooper (NC), they're mostly negative attack ads. Obama's an idiot, McCain's an idiot, "Libby" Dole's sending all our jobs to China, "And that's good for the Chinese, but bad for us." AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Enough. Any more and I'm going to quit caring. The rhetoric is getting viscous now. It's like putting peanut butter on peanut-butter cookies, too much.

I know who I'm voting for. Ya, basta; no más.

Nobel Literature Prize Predictions 2008

2008-10-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

For the third year running, I'm stating who I think is most deserving to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Some of these entries are rehashes of older posts. My list, in order is:

1. Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses is my favorite book in English. It is a masterpiece of postmodern historiographic metafiction. I love that book so so much. I also understand why fundamentalist would want to kill him for writing it. In the book, an Indian voiceover actor becomes very ill after falling (thousands of feet) from a blown-up airliner to an English beach. He turns into a half-goat man, spikes a fever, and has a delusional dream wherein this kid in a cave keeps calling him "Gabriel" and asking him questions about God. Annoyed, he flippantly answers the kid, at first not believing that the kid buys the crap he's making up, all the while not realizing that he is dictating the Koran to Mohammed.

You can understand why this would piss Muslims off. People rip on Joseph Smith all the time. One South Park episode in particular tries to skewer the Mormon church (I found the episode hilarious and doctrinally and historically inaccurate by the way). Making fun of my religion in a farcical way, hidden in a work of fiction, does not bother me. My faith is my own, and no amount of attacks against it by others will influence my beliefs. I do not want to kill Matt Stone and Trey Parker. I respect their right to make fun of anything they want, and I even laugh when they mock my faith, because I am sure of what I believe. Rushdie should have that same right, without irhabists issuing fatwas against him.

Rushdie's Midnight's Children is one of my top ten books of all time, in any language. My wife thoroughly enjoyed Shalimar the Clown. Last April, I had the chance to go and hear Rushdie speak live. He read, at length, from Midnight's Children. His commentary and insights into this fiction convince me that he is one of the greatest living novelists, and despite some personality flaws that he himself recognizes, he is a master.

I don't think the Nobel Academy will have the political courage to ever give Rushdie the award he so very much deserves. Given the reaction to the Denmark cartoons three years ago, if anyone else in Scandinavia were to praise anything even remotely objectionable to Islam, the Middle East would erupt into rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. Also, Scandinavia exports vast quanitites of dairy products to the region. If the Academy were to give Rushdie the prize, well, think of the economic consequences to the Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian economies. Rushdie deserves the award more than anyone else I can think of. If he wins the prize, it would be an amazing declaration of free speech against the tyranny and oppression of religious intolerance. But, given the vindictiveness of most irhabists, would you, being on the Nobel Committee, vote to give him the prize? It takes a special mettle in your soul to make that kind of a stand.

The British had the courage to knight him; does the Academy?

2. Carlos Fuentes, he has labored for years trying to help Mexicans understand their roots. He is a tad prideful and perhaps offensive to certain types, but his work stands for itself. He is a contemporary of Octavio Paz, García Márquez, and Borges, and deserves the prize before it's too late. Second only to Rushdie in my opinion.

3. Antonio Muñoz Molina, he'll never win, but this Spanish author of detective fiction has created some of the few recent detective stories that you'll want to re-read. The solution to the crime isn't why you read them. They are noirish novels that deal with reconciling peoples' actions under Franco with their own moralities, ethics, etc. His novels such as Plenilunio, Sefarad, El invierno en Lisboa, and Beltenebros, are all classics and worth multiple readings. They have been made into movies, all badly, save Plenilunio. If they are ever translated into English, you should check them out. He is a modern master and a jazzman. He's on my list because I love his work, not necessarily because he's deserving.....yet.

4. Ricardo Piglia, another master, but one without the prestige and reknown to attract the Nobel committee's attention. The Absent City is amazing, and Respiración Artificial beggars description. I feel that Piglia will win some day, maybe not anytime soon.

5. Nicanor Parra, the anti-poet; his work was very influential on poets in Spanish and English. Deserving, and at 94, probably will never get it. He's an outside shot. He'd be the third Chilean poet to win.

6. Slavoj Zizek, the most enjoyable modern philosopher I can think of. He has his fingers on the pulse of current Western culture. He is a prolific writer and has a knack for explaining abstruse concepts in terms that everyone can understand. The estate of Jacques Lacan owes Zizek a huge hug for his tireless work in making Lacan relatively approachable to the masses. Zizek's works include The Sublime Object of Ideology, Tarrying with the Negative, Welcome to the Desert of the Real, Enjoy Your Sympton, and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Hitchcock But Were Afraid to Ask Lacan.

7. Umberto Eco, a master in the classic form. The Name of the Rose, or "City of Robots" are very impressive and thought-provoking. If they can give the prize to Italian playwright Dario Fo they can surely give a nod to Eco (though Silviano Santiago would most definitely disagree with me).

I'm sure some people expect me to put Mario Vargas Llosa on my list, and he might well get the prize, but there's just something about his writing, his politics, and himself that makes me think he's not a strong candidate. However, I must say that I thoroughly enjoy his essay "My Son the Rastafarian" ("Mi hijo el etíope") and I teach it frequently.

I'm sure there are numerous others that need mentioning. Phillip Roth, Chinua Achebe, Margaret Atwood, Bob Dylan, etc. Can you imagine the difficulty in finding someone to translate works from say Somalian in to Swedish? Malawi or Togolese? so the committee can read them.... It's no wonder that English speakers have won more than any other language.

Please feel free to comment on my selections or add your own. You'll hopefully understand why my choices are Hispanic top-heavy, though please remember that no native Spanish-speaking author has won since Octavio Paz way back in 1990. Also, nothing prevents the Academy from awarding the prize to multiple winners, as has been done in years past.

Breastfeeding Is Not Birth Control

2008-10-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

No, Mickelle isn't pregnant again, Bulldog's throwing a shut-out and keeping the Dodgers in the playoffs (is it '88 again?)

Rumor has it that Jamie Lynn Spears is, again, however. She just had a child in mid-June, mind you. Nothing like Irish twins.

His Name Is My Name Too (Two)

2008-10-08T10:08:00.001-07:00

FARK YOU, Seth Meyers

2008-10-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

I don't know how many of you still watch SNL anymore, but Saturday night, I saw one of the worst examples ever of the mean-spiritedness that has reigned there ever since Tina Fey became head writer.

During Weekend Update, Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers traded off making fat jokes about the former "World's Fattest Man," Manuel Uribe Garza,'s pending nuptials later this month.

The one that soured me on the show was, "Uribe and his wife will spend their honeymoon trying to find his penis."

Wtf? That's not low-hanging fruit, that's just f****** cruel, mean, and shows how callous SNL has become. It wasn't borderline mean like the joke about him getting married as a way to get cake. No, this was the "cool kids" on the playground mocking the fat kid, on national television. Uribe has lost over 500 lbs without surgery.

The first time I remember being angered by SNL had to do with a fat joke too. Shortly after 9-11, Welsh singer, Charlotte Churchm then only 15, said that NYC firefighters weren't all heroes, they were just doing their jobs. Tina Fey's Weekend Update line was "Well Charlotte, some day you'll be fat."

What the fark? That's not funny. You can claim she was attempting to "act" like a high schooler and call her fat, for the irony of her being a teenager. But, Fey's not that good, and Church didn't suffer through the hell that is American high school, so the joke's lost on her. Fey's delivery was mean. The joke was lost on the majority of people. They laughed because Charlotte Church was a little overweight. It was just mean.

I loathe Tina Fey. I'll never watch 30 Rock. And, Seth Meyers can die in a fire with all the other assholes who can't leave high school in the past. He's not funny! Witty, when he's at his best, but he reminds me of the frat-boy golden-child poonhounds I had in my classes at Tulane. Nothing but a showy facade.

Manuel Uribe Garza does not deserve our pity. He hasn't asked for it. He doesn't want help. He's been losing weight on his own. Leave the man alone.

Seth Meyers, if we ever meet, I'm going to sit on you.

Nocturnal Penile Tumescence and Jack

2008-10-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday Mickelle took Calliope with her to Marley's early-morning soccer game while I stayed home and worked on putting together the patio furniture we got on clearance four weeks ago that has been sitting in our living room ever since. Jack was still asleep for much of the time.

When he awoke, I took him and laid him on our bed to change his diaper. When I took it off, he had definite nocturnal penile tumescence, or "morning wood," as most men call it.

Whenever I change his diaper, to ease the passage of the new diaper under his bottom, he puts his feet down and thrusts his pelvis up in the air. As he, like most boys, is naturally fascinated with his penis, when he did this yesterday, and saw his penis looking far larger than it normally is, or that he might have ever seen before, he grabbed it, looked at me with glee in his eyes, and yelled "MAC, LOOOOOOOOK!" He was very impressed with himself.

Perspective

2008-10-03T11:42:00.001-07:00

Chaucer is still funny

2008-10-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

The Wife of Bath's Prologue (1370-ish)

In wyfhod I wol use myn instrument
As frely as my Makere hath it sent.
If I be daungerous, God yeve me sorwe!
Myn housbonde shal it have bothe eve and morwe,
Whan that hym list come forth and paye his dette.
An housbonde I wol have -- I wol nat lette --
Which shal be bothe my dettour and my thral,
And have his tribulacion withal
Upon his flessh, whil that I am his wyf.
I have the power durynge al my lyf
Upon his propre body, and noght he.

...

and then later...

...

Thow seyst we wyves wol oure vices hide
Til we be fast, and thanne we wol hem shewe
Wel may that be a proverbe of a shrewe!

Thou seist that oxen, asses, hors, and houndes,
They been assayed at diverse stoundes;
Bacyns, lavours, er that men hem bye,
Spoones and stooles, and al swich housbondrye,
And so been pottes, clothes, and array;
But folk of wyves maken noon assay,
Til they be wedded -- olde dotard shrewe! --
And thanne, seistow, we wol oure vices shewe.

He's paraphrasing St. Jerome, but it's just awesome....and no, I'm not talking about Mickelle.

Vice-Presidential Debates

2008-10-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the debate, a total letdown, is over. Both sides did well, I guess. Biden had to hold back, and Palin "ssssss"ed her way through her talking points, rolling her eyes and wrinkling her nose in those ways that only attractive people can do without receiving ire from others. I expected him to destroy her, but the opportunity was lost. I'm more convinced now, than ever, that she is unqualified. Not because of what she said, but because of what she didn't say.

Did you notice that when Biden was asked, "Can you think of a single issue where you were forced to change your longheld view in order to accomodate and change circumstances?" he gave a response that was thoughtful and answered the question. Whereas, Palin responded how she "didn't veto budgets" and that "there hasn't been something that I've had to compromise on, because we've always seemed to find a way to work together up there in Alaska."

Working together is compromise, and she totally avoided the question, mostly because she probably hasn't served long enough to have had a policy change....but it also speaks to her apparent intractability.

Her grousing about big government and taxes irks me too. I own stock in a petroleum royalty trust from the Prudhoe Bay fields.....wellhead taxes were raised twice on profits inside of 12 months, at her insistence...so anytime she claims to not favor tax increases, I beg to differ.
Her famously-balanced budgets were a direct result of tax hikes to fund their civic programs. Alaska is the biggest tax and spend state there is (per capita), and it's shady, at best, to rail against taxes and big government when she made her career on doing the opposite.

She reminds me of the son of Menelaus "Pappy" O'Daniel in O Brother, Where Art Thou?. He tells Gov. O'Daniel that the opponent is running a good campaign because he's the "Reform Candidate." The son says, "people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some." Pappy whips off his hat and slaps at his son with it and says, "I'll reform you, you soft-headed sonofabitch! How we gonna run reform when we're the damn incumbent!"

Wroth

2008-10-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

In the midst of my anger over the murder that happened here on Monday, I come into work to find that someone has stolen ALL of my cold drinks from our departmental fridge. They even took a bottle of sparkling grape juice our department chair was saving for a special occasion.

If they has asked me for a drink, I would've given it to them. But, to take all of them.......

A pox upon them and their kith and kin.

Stuff Like This Angers Me to My Core

2008-10-01T05:23:00.000-07:00

I live in a very small town, one that was shocked yesterday by the murder of a local business owner, beaten to death with an axe handle on the floor of his own store.

http://www.wpde.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=199987
and
http://www.scnow.com/scp/news/local/article/hartsville_store_owner_robbed_murdered/15699/

With the video footage of the suspect, it shouldn't be too hard to capture him. He's a big dude, and someone will recognize him. I've been to Gardner's and I knew the victim. When this suspect is caught, I hope he is given a very fair and impartial trial, that he is convicted of first-degree murder due to the overwhelming evidence, and that he is executed.

I lean left-of-center but I think the death penalty is warranted in cases like this. In my world, this is far more an act of terrorism (it happened less than a mile from my home) than any bomb going off. I don't "hope it hurts" or anything like that, I just think that the brutality of his crimes leaves him with no chance of ever changing, and that his execution would serve as a reminder to local thugs that murder brings death and that they are not immune from punishment. I knew the victim; he was a good and hardworking man. The murderer is not. He only robbed $30! Can you imagine being killed for $30? If I were a business owner, I'd think about keeping a shotgun for situations like this.

Hartsville will never grow unless we address the causes of crime (poverty, 15-year olds forevermore having babies, and wholescale ignorance of ethics), educate our youth, provide quality jobs to the lower class, legalize the use and sale of most drugs, and then severely punish those who commit violent crimes. As far as I'm concerned, if you use a weapon to rob someone, you're done for 30 years. Bye-bye. Make the punishment severe enough, and I believe crime will drop accordingly. But, rather than punishing, which is just treating the symptom, we must fight the disease, and that means education, jobs, and for society to stop hiding behind sub-cultural facades and starting recognizing the need for fundamental change in every segment of society, irrespective of race, creed, wealth, or the civil status of your parents.

Children need Fathers
Schools need more resources, distributed equitably
Fast-food jobs are not good jobs for adults
Drugs should be legalized
Criminal codes should be strengthened, and judges should be given more discretion on sentencing
Snitching is the right thing to do (farking idiots)
The wealthy need to help, and free capital to create jobs won't be enough
Philanthropy is a moral imperative
Giving your time to something can often have more of an impact that signing a check
Don't assume you know something about people because of how they look
Don't judge a group of people by the actions of a few

♫ Caption Contest ♫

2008-09-27T17:29:00.001-07:00

Ok, dear readers. An ephemeral prize to whomever posts the best caption to this photograph.

Here's mine: "♪ This menu is diviiiiiiiiiiiiiine ♫"

For clarification, they are at Barbecue Street in Kennesaw, Georgia.

Religion and Politics (Shouldn't Mix)

2008-09-23T08:32:00.000-07:00

Far too often, religious people seek to impose their beliefs on the populace at large. If that's what society wants, so be it, but I don't like it. I don't want my goverment governed by a majority religion (even if it's my own). However, I can think of precious few instances in world history when an entire society saw eye-to-eye on religious matters. Whether's it's Hindus in India being scandalized by Richard Gere's cheek kiss of a woman, Baptists freaking out about DisneyWorld having a gay day, or Muslims saying you can't wear your hair in a spike style, religious hegemony by way of force or demand or mob rule, is contradictory to the tenets of their own religious teachings; yes, even the Koran says it's better to persuade people to do good than to obligate them. Jesus never said, "Obey my commandments or burn in hell," (though John kinda did). He did say, on the beach, to Peter, while enjoying some fish and honeycomb, "if you love me, keep my commandments."

If you love Him, keep His commandments. That's a good rule. One that most people can parrot back to you, but very few can live. A true person of faith, doesn't seek to impose their own faith on someone else via the long arm of the law. I can --not-- like the fact that pornography and vice pervade our culture. It makes me wish that people would choose better things for themselves and for their families. But if I try and compel them, isn't that limiting their agency on spiritual choices by secular means?

There are only two paths to achieving 100% obedience to the commandments. 1) you can obligate people to obey, taking away their rights and free will, and 2) you can show them by example, by love unfeigned, how much better life can be. The first plan belongs to Beelzebub; the second to God. He is the Father of everyone, Hindus, Muslims, Atheists, Christians, Jews, Agnostics. We are all brothers and sisters. Loving God, and choosing to do his will, is the only thing we can do to show our obedience. It has to come from within. Making someone get a certain haircut, trying to burn Harry Potter books, hell, especially telling someone that they're going to hell for believing a certain way, places one squarely in the gall of bitterness and pride.

Who told you what God wanted someone else to do? The Holy Ghost could certainly tell you something that YOU should do; Jesus specifically warns us to avoid the mote in our brothers eye whilst ignoring the beam in our own. I hold very strict and specific beliefs about what constitute right living. I hate that most people ignore the commandments. I wish they would obey them. But, I know they won't, and me complaining about it and trying to take away their free will by criminalizing certain actions, is wrong.

We could all learn a thing or two from Jesus; most people need to read up a little. Christians would do well to read the teachings of Jesus Christ for what they say, and not what others have told them they say. Jesus' message was one of love and patience and understanding. I hope to understand his message better before I meet him.

MadTV vs SNL

2008-09-21T19:35:00.000-07:00

vs.

MadTV wins in my book. Comparing the two shows now, it's no contest; MadTV is superior. I rarely laugh when watching SNL anymore, even with Tina Fey no longer on it. I laugh constantly watching MadTV, especially when Nicole Parker does her impersonations (with all respect to the master, Darrell Hammond).

On Why My Sister and I Have Kick-Ass Names

2008-09-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

PLEASE NOTE: Apparently, I have failed miserably to write a post after the style of The Onion. My readers have not appreciated the humor in what I was saying, so I'm adding this header as a clarification....this post is meant as a self-depricating joke. My name is Mac; I like my name, but I am in no position to cast asperions on others' names. This was an attempt at humor; I figured the "kick ass" in the title would be clue enough. My apologies to all I offended.

As I sat in my daughter's classroom today for a parent-teacher conference and looked down the list of names on the sign-in sheet I was struck by how awful some people's names are. America has gone mad for alternate spellings, last names as first names, egregious use of apostrophes, and just plain making shit up.

I know, I know, some people will counter that my children have "odd" names. I riposte that they are all centuries old names, and that they all predate the founding of our country.

Marley = old form of Marlene (even though she is named after Robert Nesta)
Xiomara = from the Celtic, via Castillian Spanish "Guiomara >>>>> Xiomara"
John = Jesus' favorite
McLarty = my paternal great-grandmother's maiden name
Calliope = Greek muse of epic war poetry
Marisol = María de la Soledad

I've tried to get Mickelle to consider Danish names given her Fonnesbeck Danish heritage, like Travis and Erin did by using the Danish equivalent of "Ralph" for their son Brecken. But, she won't even discuss it.

So, having disarmed my critics, let me say that naming your kid something made-up like Nqueedah, Tielar, Spensyr, D'art'alan, Zavyionnne (yes, that's three n's), Leee, I could go on, is unnecessary. I am a Luddite of nymic invention. We have thousands of perfectly good names. Rather than naming your kid something they have no chance of ever finding on a premade keychain, why not name them after someone......something they can relate to, something that will inspire them. I admit, that being named John makes me happy wheneve I read that Jesus named him Boanerges, or "Son of Thunder." I share this legacy via my name.

But, we have several naming conventions in our larger American culture. The pattern for WASPs is to either give them some Anglo-Saxon last name as a first name: Carter, Dalton, Jackson. Still more common, and more boring, is a assembly-line consanant game with combination of vocal couplings.........take any sound like "ay" or -ly and then change the initial consonant:

Bailey
Cailey
Haylee
Jaylee
Kaylee
Mayli
Naylee
Raelee
Saylee
Taylee
Vaylee

You see the pattern here, even without consonant clusters, the possible names are endless, and endlessly boring. There was a time from about 1999-2005, when if we knew someone from Utah had had a baby, I'd ask, "did you name it Taylor or Tyler?"

So, my own name......John McLarty Williams III. My Dad was Jr. His dad is Sr. In the family, Papa is "Mac." My dad was Johnny Mac, and I'm, get this, "Little Mac." My cousins' kids still call me Little Mac. Anyway, I've never been called, nor gone by, John in my life, save the first day of school every year. Mac sets me apart. It is an old name. There are a million Matts, Bobs, Mikes, Scotts, Jasons, Kevins, and Joshs. We Macs are a precious few, and people remember my name. It provides me with character and panache. My parents could've named me Jason or Steve or Jedidiah, but I got Mac, it's a kick-ass name, and I love my name.

Now, the disinterested lector will try and lamely counter that I have contradicted myself. I have not, dear reader. My name is a real name, an ancient one. It's not spelled Maq or Maack or some other crazy way. There are three spellings: Mc, Mac, and Mack. Johnny Mac and Laura chose the middle one for me.

Even better than my own name (and I realize that most people love their own names) is that of my sister. Her name, Susanna Marie Williams, is classic. It's got that Southerness that can't be invented. Susanna is Biblical and belonged to my paternal grandmother's mother. It's both an old family name AND that of a Bible heroine. While my sister's name has always had my favor, as I looked at this picture of her today, I realized just how great a name it is. No one names their kid Susanna....Suzanne, sure, but not Susanna. Susanna Marie, just say it.....Susanna Marie. It rolls off the tongue. Look at this photograph and try and give her any other name. It won't do, no matter what it is.

With all of this said and done, it's totally asinine to make fun of other people's names; it's rude; it's juvenile; it's pedantic. And yet, I can't help myself, even as I think that all names are equal when they're yours (save maybe, these). I guess mine and Susanna's are more equal than others.

UPDATE 9-21-08: Some people have failed to see the comedy and point of this post. Please read the comments for clarification.

I Got Tagged

2008-09-17T19:35:00.001-07:00

Apparently my blogging daughter has tagged me.....so here goes.

Name and meaning: John McLarty Williams III, "Mac." John is Hebrew for "God is gracious." McLarty is Scottish for "Son of Larty." Williams means "Son of William," and I'm the third because my dad was Junior and my grandpa is Senior. So, my name is God is Gracious Son of Larty Son of William the Third. It sounds like Lord of the Rings names: Gimli son of Gloim.

Age: I am thirty-four at the time of writing.

Nicknames: Mac, Little Mac, Big Mac, Macaroni, Makakerel, Macoco, Maxipad, Mack Truck, Cookie, Macamillion, Macker Quacker, Mackster, Daddy Mac, Mac Daddy, the Daddy of the Mac Daddy, Mac Tonight, Willi (in Spanish), Crackhead, Raincheck, Relish Neck, Fire Butt (evidently I'm warm), and RebelScum.

Favorite Activities: Reading, Movies, Family, Scrounging, Watching Baseball, Blogging, Hanging out with friends, traveling.

Favorite Foods: Sushi, Korean, Southern-American, real Mexican, pizza, Creole, Cajun, Marabou chocolate, kimchi, bee bim bap, grasshopper brains, pretzel salad.

Least-favorite food: Canned or processed tuna, carrots--especially cooked carrots, liver, Necco wafers, chocolate ice cream, white or black jelly beans, butter pecan ice cream, Jello with fruit in it, mondongo.

Favorite Music: The Beatles, the Eagles, Bob Marley, Weezer, CCR, Maná, Collective Soul, Jack Johnson, Sublime, 311, the White Stripes, the Strokes, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac (when Peter Green was lead singer), the Killers, Fastball, Johnny Cash, the Refreshments, bluegrass, Eros Ramazotti, Trombone Shorty, New Orleans jazz, the Hives, Rage Against the Machine, and Smashing Pumpkins.

Favorite toys: Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Axis and Allies....man, toys, it's been so long.

Favorite book: The Satanic Verses (English), Don Quijote de la Mancha (Spanish)

Favorite item of clothing: I rock (yes, I said "rock) shorts and a guayabera every day; I'd wear it to church if the old folks wouldn't stare.

What makes me happy: Being with Mickelle, spending time with the kids, lolcats, reading, watching someone hit a homerun, The Soup, seeing a student's eyes fill with confidence when they say something right in Spanish, teaching, fuel efficiency, good customer service, a woman who smiles, clever lyrics, when meetings I don't want to go to get canceled, nooners, when friends come to visit, selling something for more money than I paid for it, getting a deal on something, planning study abroad trips, speaking Portuguese, really ugly neckties, being called "Doctor," when I get junkmail addressed to Mr. John J. Gingleheimerschmidt, good news.

What makes me sad: eBay management, intolerance, bigotry, Mormons who are prejudiced, death, suffering, stressing about money, social injustice, my powerlessness before the machine, the United Nations, canceled flights, hurricanes, anniversaries of bad days, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, gout attacks, when people speak in ignorance about my faith, fat jokes from the mouths of adults, low salaries, territorial pissing contests, poor scholarship, that I have only one life to give for my country, bad news.

Now I tag: Tim, Mickelle, Chattypatra, and Pablo Hecho (they all hate these kinds of things).

I Love This Commercial

2008-09-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

Circa 1999

Since this commercial came out, one of Mickelle's pet names for me has been "Raincheck."

RIP Norman Whitfield (1943-2008)

2008-09-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

It is with great sadness that I relate the death of another creative genius, Norman Whitfield, Motown songwriter. The Temptations version of his "Just My Imagination" will forever take me back to nights working at Pizza Hut on Canyon Road in Provo, Utah. When we closed in the Summer after doing EFY nights, the volume of dishes to wash, cash to count, and stuff to clean was a lot. The stress of processing all those order for EFY was great, and we often found that the normal rock and roll didn't make us feel better as we cleaned. This song and the soundtrack to Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? were our favorites, gently calming us as we thought nice stress-free thoughts. The gentle melody, the romantic lyrics, the quality of the voices, it's all there. Great song, great band, great singers.

One of my favorite bands of all time, right up there with the Beatles, the Eagles, and Bob Marley & the Wailers is Creedence Clearwater Revival. And, my favorite song by CCR is "Heard It Through the Grapevine," which is another Whitfield tune (made famous by Marvin Gaye and then Gladys Knight & the Pips). CCR took it to its perfection in an eight-minute jam that I love to listen to while I write; it's right up there with "Fortunate Son."

If you're unfamiliar with this master's work, check out the bottom of his wikipedia page. He wrote at least ten songs that I can sing from memory. While he hasn't had a hit since I was a toddler, I bow to his songwriting prowess and the good memories his tunes bring to mind.

Missing My "Damned Pater Familias"

2008-09-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to http://www.pandora.com/ for a couple of weeks now and thinking how awesome it is.

Just now, I thought, "You should email Dad and have him check it out; he'll love it," before I realized that he's dead and some of his ashes are in a lucite iPod box (inside a baggie) waiting for me to dump him in Apalachicola Bay, Florida next month.

Son of a bitch! I miss my dad. And he would've totally loved Pandora. His channel of choice you might ask? Jimi Hendrix, 365.25 days a year.

Pakistan Is No Ally

2008-09-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

Go read this first:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122157191948543051.html

Now, let me just say that I am greatly simplifying things for the purposes of this post. This is no treatise on American-Pakistani relations; I don't have time to write that right now, but I wanted to express my frustration and dismay over the situation. Furthermore, let me add that I am a social & fiscal moderate and a conservative on most foreign-policy issues (save the Iraq mess). We have room for diplomacy when bullets aren't flying, but when someone is abetting your enemy, will not act on their own to expel the enemy, and threatens to attack you for prosecuting your campaign, eventually diplomacy is no longer viable, and action must be taken.

I understand that Pakistan is yet another of these lame Old World countries so riven by ethnic differences that it doesn't want to be Pakistan. And if you plan to counter that it's a symptom of colonialism, I maintain that the phenomenon is not limited just to former colonies (e.g. Belgium). The difficulty in maintaining central power over people who care nothing for Pakistan is that you are powerless to respond to your "allies'" security concerns without starting a civil war.

Pakistan's recent assertion that it will fire on American troops in its country surely seems justified in their eyes, but Osama bin Laden or at least the Taliban leadership IS in Waziristan. There's little doubt about that, and they are our true enemies. Pakistan is simply the current hiding place of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, much like Afghanistan was until we swatted them. The differences between Pakistan and Afghanistan, aside from the superficial, are important. One, Pakistan has fought several wars with India over the disputed Kashmir region and various other post-colonial pissing contest nonsense. This wouldn't be that big a deal, but India's strategic (as a front against Chinese expansion/aggresion in South Asia) and economic importance to the world means that we have to act thinking about how our actions impact India (which impacts us). Two, if we piss off Pakistan, they have nuclear weapons. If a crisis with India were to come to a head, who could know which of the two might use the nukes on the other? It's not worth the risk. A third somewhat unrelated issue with Pakistan is the potential wave of negativity that could erupt from a flawed sense of Nationalism (even though the radicals don't want to be part of Pakistan, unless it's a religious state), breeding even more people who hate the United States enough to attack it and its interests.

So, given that the Taliban and Al Qaeda can still cause havok from Pakistan without fear of counter-attack, what can we do? Pakistan says that they will shoot back. They don't really want a war with us. I say that if Pakistan is harboring Taliban (harboring, even by omission/inaction), and they want to risk it, let them shoot at us and see what happens. We cannot continue fighting a war in Afghanistan with one hand tied behind our backs. If Pakistan fires at us, strip them of all the federal aid that they receive and essentially spend to arm themselves against their own populace.

An ally doesn't give aid, abettal, succor, arms, and tacit approval to your enemy. Pakistan needs to choose sides, and suffer the consequences of whichever one they choose. They've been playing both for far too long. If they don't want to help us, fine, but if they shoot at us, I say stand back. We will never end this war unless we are decisive now. The enemy is the Taliban. The Taliban is in Pakistan, openly. If Pakistan's government doesn't help, they too are the enemy.

Straw Men

2008-09-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

I really thought McCain was above this kind of attack. The "sex education" involved age-appropriate lessons so that little kids would know that adults touching them in certain places wasn't okay, it wasn't penis-goes-where? type stuff.

Obama strikes back, but again, it's dirty. If McCain votes "with Bush 90% of the time" the viewer is left to assume that Obama votes against Bush 90% of the time, when that clearly cannot be the case, otherwise they would make loud notice of it. I'd like to know what the actual Obama voting with Bush stats are, before I beleived the 90% as a hanging-offense.

If You'd Like to Go to Costa Rica Next May with Me As Your Tour Guide

2008-09-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

Check out:

http://courses.coker.edu/jwilliams/cr

Anyone can go, whether a Coker student or not.

How a Devout Mormon Can Vote for a Pro-Choice Candidate

2008-09-12T07:12:00.003-07:00

So, several hardline Mormon friends have been sometimes not-so-politely questioning how I can vote for Barack Obama given his stance as being Pro-Choice. I'll try and explain this in a language that everyone can understand, so that there is precious little room for doubt.

First, let me say that I think abortion is wrong, sinfully wrong. It is a selfish act that probably kills a fetus with feelings (I'm not sure when life begins, nor has my church clarified its position on when life begins). There are so many people out there who would like to adopt, and abortion slaughters the hopes of these countless couples. I would definitely actively try and encourage anyone I knew to not have an abortion, and to look at adoption alternatives. If I knew someone who had an abortion, I would never give any sort of approval (not that they would be looking for it necessarily), aid them financially in having one, or be okay with it. I hold it as greivous a sin as adultery. This (abortion or adultery) would probably end any friendship I had with them until they repented, probably (I know I used it twice).

Second, I think abortion in the case of rape or incest should be legal. I think that if the mother's life is in jeopardy, it should definitely be legal. If I have to choose between an unborn infant and my wife, the child dies--every time.

Third, I believe that our Nation was founded, firmly, upon a separation of Church and State. While the religious practices of the populous have changed over the course of 232 years, the government has remained secular. This is a good thing. No one religion should dominate, a lesson that Mormons should know well after their persecutions in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. We actually fled the United States for what was then Mexico when we settled Utah in 1847. When religious discrimination is allowed to affect the law, then it leads to civil rights violations.

Since I hold firmly that the government should not have an official religion, and that the 1st Amendment holds that we have freedom of religion, this means that people can believe or not believe whatever they want. Right now, a Christian, or at-least a Christian-enculturated majority has the cultural say in what constitutes acceptable behavior in society. Our laws protect us from the fear of religious prosecution in a legal setting. Criminal codes exist to protect people's rights. Even though many of us view certain sins as criminal, the law and its interpreters do not always agree, based on our Constitution. Therefore, for example, even though I think pre-marital sex is a sin, the law would view this as consensual, and therefore, not criminal. Even though I don't want people having pre-marital sex, using the legal system to punish people for a spiritual flaw is not what our Constitution is about. Obedience should be done of volition, not of fear of temporal consequences. You can't use the law to push a religious agenda, in spite of the consequences...that is unless you want your religion to dominate, because what would happen if suddenly through immigration or massive conversion, a religion that you did not agree with were to become the majority in this country? Would you then want that religion's beliefs dictating what you could and could not do? No, of course not. These protections of and from religion are one of the reasons that America is great.

Fourth, so with an understanding of my position on Church and State, I cannot force my religious beliefs on someone else. Stecher may counter that this transcends mere issues of religion, that it constitutes a humanitarian issue, that we are murdering people. I cannot buy that; his (and my) religion color our perspectives. People don't believe what I do. I find comparisons of abortion with slavery troubling. While both are heinous, slavery will forevermore be the worse of the two. I would venture that the death toll from abortions in the U.S. since its founding are less than one year's toll from the Middle Passage trade. And there are so many other issues. Why get so indignant over abortion and yet not mind going to war and the death penalty (I am in favor of the death penalty, for the record)? I just don't get that worked up over the issue to give myself tunnel vision that it's the only one that matters.

Fifth, while you can certainly argue that abortion is the most important issue in this election, it is not the only one. I will not base my election decision off this one stance. I don't feel it's important enough. Yes, I have children, and again, I state that I hate abortion and I wish people wouldn't do it, but it isn't the only thing informing (that's for you, Norman baby) my vote. Our nation needs leaders who consider all options of an issue, leaders who don't make snap-decisions based on gut reactions. The greater the issue, the more time should be spent in contemplation of the repercussions and consequences of an action. Having studied the positions of both sides, and finding things that I liked and disliked about both platforms, I feel that Obama more closely represents the ideas I think our country (notice I didn't say, "I") needs. To let McCain/Palin have power to continue certain programs and projects, and try and legislate certain things, including the Right's morality (which I share), is something that I cannot stomach.

Sixth, I think rather than fighting and name calling, both sides should work together to try and reduce the total number of abortions.

Seventh, whether or not abortions are illegal, people will still have them. People are selfish. Their lust leads them to create children that they don't want (Certainly many wives have children that they didn't want, but that their husbands unrighteously forced them to have). For people who don't want children because they don't "have time" and "don't want kids" or "can't stand the disruption," I have no sympathy; someone raised you. Given that abortions will always happen, I don't want people dying from back-alley medical procedures.

Eighth, from a religious perspective, would you rather have someone die having an illegal abortion, and die in their sins, or have them live, and possibly feel contrite and repent some day?

Ninth, I am opposed to abortion, but I don't think my opposition stems from something other than my religious beliefs, therefore, I cannot hold that it should be illegal. I don't want any religion, even my own, shaping the laws of all three-hundred million Americans.

Proof Positive Why Sarah Palin Should NOT Be President, Vice President, or a Policy Maker of Any Kind

2008-09-12T04:47:00.000-07:00

Read this first:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/11/palin.abc/index.html

We have been antagonizing Russia by including former Soviet Republics in NATO, placing missle defense systems in Soviet Bloc Nations as putative defenses against "Middle Eastern" nuclear missles, and being very hypocritical in our take of their treatment of Chechnya (while ignoring our own closeby invasions). Vladimir Putin saw through our ruse, knowing full well that that missle shield is our effort to shore-up our missle defences against a growing Russian prosperity and the cockiness money gives to pseudo-despots like Putin. In a brilliant move, designed to make us show our cards, he offered to let us build the missle shield against these supposed Iranian or North Korean warheads in Russia.....of course, we found a reason not to do so, even though a Russian site would've been strategically better (arguably).

Palin seems to ignore any concept of Russian concerns and fears about Western influence building in their periphery, much the same way we might if Russia and Mexico signed a mutual-defense treaty or something similar to the idea....Mexico isn't important, it being in our historical sphere of influence is.

Economic sanctions are like trying to cut down a tree with dental floss...you might scar the bark, but nothing will happen. When have sanctions ever worked? Since Russia supplies the bulk of oil and natural gas to most of Europe, how does Palin think our NATO allies would react to sanctions against their energy supplier? Would they be on board and risk their economies and the prospect of their people freezing to death (in some countries) over Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, or some other miniscule place? These same NATO allies didn't flinch to help Rwanda or Sudan out of their genocide (All NATO members are signers and ratifiers of the Genocide Convention, yet none acted in Rwanda until after the slaughter had abated). I see a clear lack of understanding of the issues in Gov. Palin's speech and rhetoric. She reminds me of the football players at my high school in suburban Atlanta in the 1980's. If someone did something they didn't like, they would shove them, place both of their hands near their waist and making a "come hither" gesture to the person, they would utter in a classic Cherokee County drawl (that few have anymore), "Come on, faggot!" Isn't this what Palin's doing?

She says that we should include Georgia in NATO, and then go to war if Russia invades. Ma'am, they're already there. Should we include them ex post facto and hit Russia with a pre-emptive strike? Have we not invaded Iraq unjustly? Could not Russia propose or impose sanctions against us and the "Coalition."

I don't want this or any small-town mayor with only two years of governor experience in a backwater state like Alaska to be the potential executive of our foreign policy. It beggars description how someone so lacking in experience is suddenly spewing out neo-conservative war-hawk rhetoric about things that she obviously doesn't want to understand.

I mean, please, she didn't even know what the vice president did in this recent interview! Start watching at 2:40.

One thing is certain, with her 19-year-old son about to ship off to Iraq, he should be reassigned to a non-combat zone now, for his safety against militants trying to kidnap him, and for the safety of his unit members. Would you want to have him next to you on patrol?

For the record, I'm not saying that we should pussyfoot around Russia, I just think a little decorum and detente instead of this reckless brinkmanship could do wonders for our relationship with the Bear, because, we started this fight by insisting on expanding NATO when Russia was weak....why wouldn't they doubt our motives?

What I Want for My Birthday (HINT HINT): Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition

2008-09-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

I am salivating over Avalon Hill's anniversary edition of the classic boardgame Axis & Allies:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/prod/axisanniv

If anyone who loves me wants to get me something I will cherish until I give up the ghost, this would be a great gift (hint, hint, Mom). I will change my will to leave it to whomever grants me this boon; don't think I'm kidding.

Easy and Affordable Emergency Food Supply Option

2008-09-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

Costco is offering a heck of a deal on an emergency food supply:

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?whse=BC&topnav=&prodid=11219554&ec=BC-EC877-CatHome&pos=9&lang=en-US

No matter where you live, a natural disaster could strike, and this portable and nutritious food supply could make things very comfortable for you for an extended time. Also, given its long shelf life, if you were ever out of work for an extended period of time, these meals could help you lower your grocery bill should you need to cut back on expenses. And if the world goes to hell, well, there's always this to snack on (NO, I'm NOT MILLENIAL!).

For the record, I own stock in Costco.

My Unattractive Ancestors

2008-09-08T11:00:00.000-07:00

How cool is this?! My mom sent me an email today with a photograph of some of my great-great-great grandparents (tatara-tatara-tatara-abuelos). Maybe they were good looking when they were younger....he does have my nose. I have ancestors named Nimrod and Nineveh!

Merrill Nimrod Kilpatrick m. Nancy Jones Scoggins

Mary Catherine Kilpatrick m. Joel Elbert Cole
Laura Loduski Cole m. John Agleston Buckner
Raymond Vines Buckner m. Mattie Mozelle Carter
Laura Ellen Buckner m. John McLarty Williams, Jr.
John McLarty Williams, III (Mac) m. Mickelle Fonnesbeck
John McLarty Williams, IV (Jack)